Lóngpíng jí 隆平集
Collection of [the era of] Great Peace attributed to 曾鞏
About the work
A 20-juǎn compilation in huìyào 會要 form covering the first five reigns of the Northern Sòng — Tàizǔ 太祖, Tàizōng 太宗, Zhēnzōng 真宗, Rénzōng 仁宗, and Yīngzōng 英宗 (960–1067). Twenty-six topical headings (institutions, offices, household statistics, sacrifices, schools, examinations, princes, foreign peoples, etc.) are followed by 284 biographies grouped by office. The book bears a Shàoxīng 紹興 12 (1142) preface by Zhào Bówèi 趙伯衛, Prince of Zī 淄王, who claims to have received it from his great-grandfather (the imperial Zōngzhèng of the Northern Sòng) and identifies the author as the Northern-Sòng historian Zēng Gǒng 曾鞏 (1019–1083). The Sìkù editors, Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武, and modern scholarship all judge it unlikely to be Zēng’s work — biographical sources for Zēng (his brother Zēng Zhào’s 曾肇 xíngzhuàng; Hán Wéi 韓維’s shéndào bēi) inventory his writings without mentioning it, and Zēng was attached to the History Bureau for only five months. The work nevertheless circulated as authoritative from the late Northern Sòng (Lǐ Tāo’s 李燾 Xù Zīzhì tōngjiàn chángbiān cites it on Lǐ Zhì’s 李至 dismissal) and the Yuán-era Sōng shǐ 宋史 compilers (under Yuán Jué 袁桷’s Sōuf’ǎng yíshū tiáolì) listed it among acceptable supplementary sources.
Tiyao
Submitted by your servants, etc. The Lóngpíng jí in twenty juǎn, in old copies attributed to Zēng Gǒng of the Sòng. Gǒng’s zì was Zǐgù; he was a man of Nánfēng. Jìnshì of Jiāyòu 2 (1057), appointed sīfǎ cānjūn of Tàipíng zhōu, summoned as Jíxián jiàolǐ, sent out as prefect of Fú, Míng, and other prefectures; under Shénzōng his office reached Zhōngshū shèrén. The particulars are in his Sòngshǐ biography. The book records the affairs of the five reigns from Tàizǔ to Yīngzōng, organised under twenty-six headings — its form resembles the huìyào — and adds 284 biographies, classified by office. There is a preface by Zhào Bówèi dated Shàoxīng 12 (1142). The recording is summary and fragmentary, much at odds with shǐfǎ. Cháo Gōngwǔ in his Dúshū zhì picks out as a slip its citation of the Tàipíng yùlǎn and the Zǒnglèi as if these were two different works, and questions whether the work can be Zēng Gǒng’s. We now find that Gǒng’s biography in the Sòngshǐ does not list this collection; Zēng Zhào’s xíngzhuàng of Gǒng and Hán Wéi’s shéndào bēi enumerate his writings in some detail and likewise omit it. According to the Yùhǎi, in the seventh month of Yuánfēng 4 (1081) Gǒng was attached to the History Bureau as xiūzhuàn, and in the eleventh month presented a Tàizǔ zǒnglùn which displeased the throne, whereupon the Five-Reigns History was discontinued. Gǒng was at the Bureau for barely five months in all — there can have been no time for him to have hastily compiled this exemplar for presentation. That the work is a forgery is hardly in doubt. Yet from the late Northern Sòng it was already in circulation: Lǐ Tāo’s Xù Zīzhì tōngjiàn chángbiān cites it on the appointment and dismissal of Lǐ Zhì 李至 and the like — so the work was preserved and not discarded at that time. When the Yuán was compiling the Sòngshǐ, Yuán Jué’s Sōuf’ǎng yíshū tiáolì listed it for use in supplementary citation. Plainly, even though it is not from Gǒng’s hand, it is at any rate an old Sòng-era basket and so we have here too retained it on probation, as one of the available accounts. Ninth month, Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief compilers, etc.
Abstract
The work circulates under Zēng Gǒng’s name on the strength of the 1142 preface by Zhào Bówèi, but its true authorship has been doubted since the Southern Sòng. Cháo Gōngwǔ already noted obvious slips (treating Tàipíng yùlǎn and Zǒnglèi as separate books). The biographical record of Zēng Gǒng — who indeed served briefly in the History Bureau in 1081 charged with a Five-Reigns History but had the project cancelled almost immediately — does not include the Lóngpíng jí among his works in any of three independent inventories (the Sòngshǐ biography, his brother Zēng Zhào’s xíngzhuàng, Hán Wéi’s shéndào bēi). The Sìkù editors, accordingly, classify the work as Sòng-period anonymous matter pseudonymously transmitted in Zēng’s name. The dating bracket here runs from the cancellation of Zēng’s official Five-Reigns project (which gave the book its plausible attribution-fiction) to Zhào Bówèi’s preface of 1142, which is the earliest external evidence of circulation in something like its present form. Wilkinson (Chinese History, §50.5 on Sòng huìyào) treats the Lóngpíng jí as a useful supplementary source for the institutional history of the early Sòng, particularly the household, examination, and military sections, even after the Sòng huìyào jígǎo 宋會要輯稿 became available. Modern scholarship: the standard punctuated edition is Wáng Ruìlái 王瑞來, Lóngpíng jí jiàozhèng 隆平集校證 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 2012), which discusses the textual transmission and the authorship question in detail.
Translations and research
- Wáng Ruìlái 王瑞來, ed. 2012. Lóngpíng jí jiào-zhèng 隆平集校證. Běijīng: Zhōnghuá shūjú. The standard modern critical edition with full discussion of the authorship question.
- Wáng Ruìlái 王瑞來. 2010. “Lóngpíng jí zuòzhě biàn” 《隆平集》作者辨. Wénshǐ 文史 2010.4: 195–214. The most careful single-article treatment of the authorship problem, concluding against Zēng Gǒng.
- Cài Chóngbǎng 蔡崇榜. 1991. Sòngdài xiūshǐ zhìdù yánjiū 宋代修史制度研究. Táiběi: Wénjīn. Discusses the work’s place in Sòng historiography.
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The 26 topical headings of the Lóngpíng jí — covering institutions (官制), provinces (郡縣), households (戶口), examinations (科選), foreign peoples (外彞), etc. — make it one of the earliest huìyào-style summary compilations on the Northern Sòng, predating the much larger Sòng huìyào compilation undertaken at the Sòngshǐyuàn 宋史院. It is therefore a useful witness to what was institutionally salient about the early Sòng to a Southern-Sòng compiler.