綏寇紀略

Suíkòu jìlüè 綏寇紀略

An Account of the Pacification of the Bandits by 吳偉業 (撰)

About the work

The Suíkòu jìlüè in 12 juǎn is the late-Míng jìshì běnmò by the great Yānnán-circle poet Wú Wěiyè 吳偉業 (Méicūn 梅村), composed in retirement at the Wànshòu Palace 萬壽宮 in Jiāxīng 嘉興 from Shùnzhì 9 (1652) onward. The work treats the great peasant rebellions of the Chóngzhēn 崇禎 era and the fall of the Míng dynasty in twelve titled chapters: 澠池渡 (the Ford of Miǎnchí), 車箱困 (the Carriage-Box Trap), 真寧恨 (the Resentment of Zhēnníng), 朱陽潰 (the Rout at Zhūyáng), 黑水擒 (the Capture at Black Water), 穀城變 (the Affair at Gǔchéng), 開縣敗 (the Defeat at Kāixiàn), 汴渠墊 (the Submersion at the Biàn Canal), 通城擊 (the Strike at Tōngchéng), 鹽亭誅 (the Execution at Yántíng), 九江哀 (the Mourning at Jiǔjiāng), 虞淵沈 (the Setting at the Yú Abyss). Each piece is closed with Wú’s own lùn 論. The final piece, “Setting at the Yú Abyss” — Yú yuān 虞淵 being the mythic place where the sun sets, here the setting of the Míng — does not in fact treat the eponymous events but is given over to a record of the late-Míng portents and disasters; Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 in his Pùshū tíng jí 曝書亭集 records that the original Yúyuān piece was actually in three sub-volumes (上中下), of which only the shàng survived in print (the zhōng and xià never going to woodblock); both Zhū’s text and the Sìkù tíyào speculate that the surviving Míng-loyalist descendants of officials prominent in the events suppressed the latter portion. The Wényuān gé witness in the Sìkù preserves only the original 12-piece shàng-only text, the printing of which Zhū Yízūn dates to Kāngxī jiǎyín (1674), shortly after Wú’s death.

Tiyao

The Suíkòu jìlüè in 12 juǎn was composed by Wú Wěiyè of our (Qīng) dynasty. Wěiyè, zì Jùngōng, hào Méicūn, was a man of Tàicāng. Third jìnshì of Chóngzhēn xīnwèi (1631); under our dynasty he served up to the Directorate of the National University. — The work is given over wholly to the Chóngzhēn-era rebels, down to the fall of the Míng. It is in twelve pieces: Miǎnchí dù (Ford of Miǎnchí); Chēxiāng kùn (Carriage-Box Trap); Zhēnníng hèn (Resentment of Zhēnníng); Zhūyáng kuì (Rout at Zhūyáng); Hēishuǐ qín (Capture at Black Water); Gǔchéng biàn (Affair at Gǔchéng); Kāixiàn bài (Defeat at Kāixiàn); Biànqú diàn (Submersion at Biàn Canal); Tōngchéng jí (Strike at Tōngchéng); Yántíng zhū (Execution at Yántíng); Jiǔjiāng āi (Mourning at Jiǔjiāng); Yúyuān shěn (Setting at the Yú Abyss). Each piece is followed by an evaluation. — The Yúyuān shěn piece is wholly given over to the late-Míng disasters, not in keeping with the title. — Zhū Yízūn’s Pùshū tíng jí preserves a colophon to the work which states: Méicūn in Shùnzhì rénchén (1652) lodged at the Wànshòu Palace in Jiāxīng and composed the Suíkòu jìlüè*. Long after, his fellow-villagers cut the woodblocks for it; only twelve* juǎn go to print, and the zhōng and xià parts of the Yúyuān shěn are not yet sent to the carving-block. When the Míngshǐ bureau opened, calls for unofficial histories went out, and the original full text issued; I copied it into the Bǎiliù cóngshū*. Returning to the country, my friend borrowed it and lost it.* — That is to say: the descendants of those Míng officials who descended to Lǐ Zìchéng 李自成 and joined the jìnquàn still living, the hidden parts were prudently held back; the full text held by Zhū was lost. The present text, printed by Zōu Shìjīn 鄒式金 of Kāngxī jiǎyín (1674), antedates the Míngshǐ bureau and so does not have the zhōng and xià of Yúyuān shěn; Zhū’s Bǎiliù cóngshū version, which had it, was lost. — The work bears three-character titles for each piece, in the manner of Sū Hè 蘇鶚’s Dùyáng zájiē 杜陽雜編 and Hé Guāngyuǎn 何光遠’s Jiànjiè lù 鑑戒錄. — All-three-character titling for prose-pieces began with Móu Xí’s 繆襲 Wèi náo gē cí 魏鐃歌詞; Sū and Hé carried on the device. Wěiyè’s narrative of the events of his own time uses the form, and so cannot escape the xiānzè (“light-vulgar”) manner of the xiǎoshuō taste. Further, his protection of Yáng Sìchāng 楊嗣昌 and Zuǒ Liángyù 左良玉 is touched with private indebtedness, and falls short of public verdict. — Yet the chronicle is comprehensive in detail, and as Zhū Yízūn says: what he knew at court, though it was not always what he had seen, is yet exact; while it surpasses still the village rumour-bearer’s report. It will serve to the imperial history’s gathering. This is also the public verdict. — Reverently collated, Qiánlóng 43 (1778), 5th month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Senior collator: Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The work is the principal late-Míng-loyalist jìshì běnmò of the closing decades of the Míng dynasty: a near-contemporary, named-source narrative of the Chóngzhēn-era peasant rebellions of Lǐ Zìchéng 李自成, Zhāng Xiànzhōng 張獻忠, and the lesser bandit chiefs, drawn together in twelve self-contained episodes. The composition was begun in Shùnzhì 9 (1652) at Jiāxīng, when Wú Wěiyè was in the long retirement that immediately preceded his recall to Beijing as jì’jiǔ of the National University in 1653. Although the Sìkù compilers fault Wú for protecting Yáng Sìchāng and Zuǒ Liángyù — both implicated in late-Míng court factionalism — they recognise the Suíkòu jìlüè as the essential bridge between the official Míngshǐ of 1739 and the chaotic late-Míng documentary record, and rank its testimony above the unfiltered village rumour. Modern scholarship treats it together with Lǐ Wén 計六奇’s Míngjì běilüè / Míngjì nánlüè and Tán Qiān 談遷’s Guóquè 國榷 as one of the principal seventeenth-century Hàn-loyalist sources for the dynasty’s fall.

The Sìkù edition’s Yúyuān shěn — the closing twelfth piece — preserves only the shàng portion (now in fact a record of late-Míng portents rather than a narrative); the zhōng and xià, containing the post-Lǐ Zìchéng / Mountain Hǎi 山海 / Wú Sānguì 吳三桂 narrative, were never engraved and have been lost. The work as we have it is therefore in twelve juǎn but functionally eleven and a half, the heart of the Yúyuān 虞淵 narrative being absent. This is the principal source-critical caveat of the work.

Translations and research

• Suíkòu jìlüè jiào zhù 綏寇紀略校註, ed. Lǐ Yǒu-rén 李有任, Shanghai gǔjí, 1992 (and reprints). Standard punctuated edition.
• Struve, Lynn A. 1998. The Ming-Qing Conflict, 1619–1683: A Historiography and Source Guide. Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies. (Treats the Suíkòu jìlüè among the principal Hàn-loyalist works on the Míng fall.)
• Wakeman, Frederic E. 1985. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Uses the Suíkòu jìlüè extensively.)
• Wǔ Wěiyè’s life and the genesis of the work are treated in: Yè Jūnyuán 葉君遠, Wú Méicūn nián pǔ 吳梅村年譜, 1990.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History, ch. 50, §65 passim.

Other points of interest

The book’s three-character titles for each piece — Miǎnchí dù, Chēxiāng kùn, etc. — are an unusual stylistic feature in jìshì běnmò writing; they are taken from a Han-period model (Móu Xí’s Wèi náo gē cí) and carry a deliberately archaic, almost ballad-like cast. This too is part of the Sìkù compilers’ criticism of the work as too close to xiǎoshuō (fiction-style) prose for proper historical writing. Wú’s standing as the most prominent of the Yānnán-circle poets gives the prose an unusually high literary register for the genre.

Links

• Wikipedia: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/綏寇紀略
• Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11108192