Píngdìng sānnì fānglüè 平定三逆方略
Campaign History by Imperial Command of the Pacification of the Three Feudatories by 勒德洪 (奉敕撰)
About the work
The Píngdìng sānnì fānglüè in 60 juǎn is the precedent-setting first imperially-commissioned Qīng fānglüè 方略 (campaign history) — the genre that came to dominate the jìshì běnmò class in the Sìkù and that records the major military operations of the dynasty. Commissioned by edict in Kāngxī 21 (1682), immediately on the suppression of the Three Feudatories rebellion, it documents the Kāngxī court’s eight-year war (1673–1681) against Wú Sānguì 吳三桂 of YúnnánGuìzhōu, Gěng Jīngzhōng 耿精忠 of Fújiàn, and Shàng Zhīxìn 尚之信 of Guǎngdōng — Hàn-Chinese feudatories from the MíngQīng transition who, when their request to retain their satrapies was refused, raised arms across half the empire. The book ends with the suicide of Wú Sānguì’s grandson Wú Shìfān 吳世璠 at Kūnmíng in the tenth month of Kāngxī 20 (1681). The chief compiler-of-record was the Grand Secretary Lè Déhóng 勒德洪, with five other Grand Secretaries (Mínghū, Lǐ Wèi, Wáng Xī, Huáng Jī, Wú Zhèngzhì) and four Assistants (副總裁 Ālántài, Dádài, Zhāng Yùshū, Niúniǔ) on the commission. It was the model on which all later Qīng fānglüè were built.
Tiyao
The Píngdìng sānnì fānglüè in 60 juǎn was, in Kāngxī 21 (1682), by edict ordered to be compiled, reverently recording the pacification of the rebel feudatories Wú Sānguì, Gěng Jīngzhōng, and Shàng Zhīxìn. Reverently consulting the Veritable Records: the Grand Secretaries Lè Déhóng, Mínghū, Lǐ Wèi, Wáng Xī, Huáng Jī, and Wú Zhèngzhì were appointed Chief Compilers; the Inner-Court Bachelors of the Grand Secretariat Ālántài, Dádài, Zhāng Yùshū, and the Hànlín Academy Reading-Bachelor Niúniǔ were appointed Assistant Chief Compilers. The names of those who actually wrote out the entries are not given in the original; we cannot now know them in detail. — Reverently, our Shèngzǔ Rénhuángdì 聖祖仁皇帝 received divine martial bestowal and unified all under heaven. At that time the King of the Pacification of the West, Wú Sānguì, held Yúnnán and Guìzhōu; the King of Pacification of the South, Shàng Kěxǐ 尚可喜, held Guǎngdōng; the King of Pacification of the East, Gěng Jīngzhōng, held Fújiàn — relying on the dynasty’s grace they grew arrogant and unruly. In Kāngxī 12 (1673), upon their own request to be moved out of their fiefs, an edict granted what they asked. Their treasonous designs already plotted, in the eleventh month of that year Wú Sānguì raised troops in revolt and pressed straight upon Húguǎng. Generals were dispatched to Jīngzhōu and Chángdé to block the rebel advance; eight-banner crack troops were drawn out by command and assigned commanders to subdue the enemy. — In the third month of the next year (1674) Gěng Jīngzhōng also rose in Fújiàn; Shàng Kěxǐ’s son Zhīxìn forced his father to follow the rebels — Kěxǐ died of indignation, and Zhīxìn from afar gave his support; the prefectures and counties of Fújiàn and Guǎngdōng were thrown into disturbance. Generals were sent in turn, with secret instructions on strategy, applying both pacification and suppression, and the situation was settled in stages. Sānguì died in the dark; his grandson Shìfān still held Yúnnán and refused to come in; Gěng Jīngzhōng surrendered, asking to come to court — but, examined, he had been shown to be in secret continued contact with the rebels, and was chopped in the markets. Shàng Zhīxìn likewise had submitted but was double-hearted; tried, he was given death; Guǎngdōng was pacified. By the tenth month of Kāngxī 20 (1681), our great force surrounded the provincial city of Yúnnán; Shìfān, in terror, took his own life; his subordinates all surrendered. His head was struck off and the trophy presented at the capital; Yúnnán was pacified. From the first raising of arms it had been only eight years; the three feudatories were all swept clean. The speed of the merit-gathering and the reach of the qídìng settlement is something not seen in all antiquity. — The date of the book’s completion is also not given in the Veritable Records; we have only the imperial pronouncement of the eleventh month of Kāngxī 25 (1686), in which the throne, addressing the cabinet ministers, said: “The four volumes of the Píngdìng sānnì fānglüè you have submitted I have read through. Many errors are within. As where Wáng Fǔchén 王輔臣 was at first Yúnnán’s Pacification Commissioner and was subsequently raised to be the Shǎnxī Provincial Commander; you here have him going from Shǎnxī Commander to a higher post. And in your appended evaluation you cited the case of Tàizǔ of Sòng dismissing his commanders by raising the wine-cup — but Wú Sānguì is no Sòng meritorious officer; he is rather of the type of the Táng provincial generals. Revise these things at your discretion.” — From this we may see that the compilation was at every step settled by the imperial sovereign’s sage instruction, with care and detail, and the book completed; hence its narration of events is precise and its language compact, and it serves to set forth the reign’s splendour and to make plain the design for ten thousand generations. It is altogether comparable to the great imperial codes. At the time, however, it was not engraved and circulated; only manuscript copies were preserved in the Imperial Storehouse. Now His Majesty has graciously declared its display, ordered it transcribed into the History Stack, and we, after collation, have rejoiced anew at the union of foundation and continuation in our Shèngzǔ Rénhuángdì, and looked still more deeply on the great splendour of the present sage’s hand. — Reverently collated, Qiánlóng 48 (1783), 3rd month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Senior collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Wilkinson identifies this as the first of two precedent-setting printed Qīng fānglüè (the other being Wēn Dá’s Qīnzhēng pīngdìng shuòmò fānglüè, KR2c0010). The work fixed the genre’s compositional form: a chronological day-by-day reproduction of edicts (in full), memorials (often abbreviated), and battle reports, drawn from the Junjīchù 軍機處 archives and the Veritable Records, organised under a single campaign and capped by an imperial preface and a closing memorial of presentation. The Sìkù tíyào explicitly notes that Kāngxī himself reviewed the draft and ordered corrections — a level of imperial oversight that all later fānglüè would also receive. The book was not printed in the Kāngxī or Yōngzhèng reigns and circulated only as manuscript copies in the Inner Storehouse; only with the Sìkù project of the Qiánlóng era was it ordered transcribed into the Imperial History collection. Modern researchers (Perdue 2005; Oyunbilig 1999) have observed that the fānglüè are heavily curated against the underlying archival record, with material politically embarrassing to the throne suppressed and the emperor’s own role amplified — Perdue’s structural critique applies a fortiori to this earliest specimen, which set the editorial pattern.
The catalog meta gives Lè Déhóng alone as compiler “by imperial command.” The compilation commission was however collective, headed by six Grand Secretaries (Lè Déhóng, Mínghū, Lǐ Wèi, Wáng Xī, Huáng Jī, Wú Zhèngzhì); these are identified in the tíyào but are not propagated to the work’s frontmatter, in keeping with the convention that fānglüè carry only their nominal lead. The book does not bear an imperial preface (the yùzhì xù convention started with the Shuòmò fānglüè, KR2c0010).
Translations and research
- Píngdìng sānnì fānglüè, modern facsimile reprints in Qīngdài fānglüè quánshū 清代方略全書 (Beijing tūshūguǎn, 2006, 200 vols.), and in the Sìkù quánshū photo-facsimile editions.
- Hummel, Arthur W. 1943–44. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period. Washington: Library of Congress. (Standard biographical reference for Wú Sānguì, Gěng Jīngzhōng, Shàng Zhīxìn, and the campaign commanders.)
- Tsao Kai-fu (Cáo Kǎifū). 1965. The Rebellion of the Three Feudatories Against the Manchu Throne in China, 1673–1681: Its Setting and Significance. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University. The standard English-language monograph on the campaign.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History, §66.6.1 #3.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào’s quotation of Kāngxī’s own correction — “Wú Sānguì is no Sòng meritorious officer; he is rather of the type of the Táng provincial generals” — is one of the rare imperial editorial interventions to leave a documented trace within the fānglüè corpus.
Links
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11107143