Hǎoshì Xù HòuHànshū 郝氏續後漢書
The Hǎo Continuation of the Hòu-Hànshū by 郝經 (compiler), with notes by 苟宗道
About the work
A 90-juǎn (now extant in 87 juǎn) recasting of Chén Shòu’s Sānguó zhì by the Yuán-period diplomat-scholar Hǎo Jīng 郝經 (1223–1275), composed during his enforced detention at the Sòng envoy lodgings at Yízhēn 儀真 between 1260 and ca. 1273 — sixteen years of captivity that he refused to bring to an end by yielding to Sòng pressure for political concessions. The work is entirely different from Xiāo Cháng’s similarly-titled Xù HòuHànshū (KR2d0012) of 1200, which Hǎo Jīng had not been able to see in the north. Hǎo Jīng’s project: to take the Sānguó zhì base text, establish ShǔHàn (Liú Bèi as Zhāoliè) as the legitimate inheritor of the Hàn, demote Wèi and Wú to lièzhuàn, and supplement with the alternative readings preserved in Péi Sōngzhī’s commentary and in Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōngjiàn. Structure: 1 juǎn of chronological tables (now lost); 2 juǎn of imperial annals; 79 juǎn of biographies (organised under Hàn / Wèi / Wú with sub-categories Rúxué 儒學, Wényì 文藝, Xíngrén 行人, Yìshì 義士, Gāoshì 高士, Sǐguó 死國, Sǐnüè 死虐, Jìshù 技術, Kuángshì 狂士, Pànchén 叛臣, Cuànchén 簒臣, QǔHàn 取漢, PíngWú 平吳, Liènǚ 列女, Sìyí 四夷); and 8 zhì (lù 錄) supplying the treatises Chén Shòu’s Sānguó zhì had omitted. The work was first printed in Yánjyòu 延祐 wùwǔ (1318) by official action; from the Míng onwards the printed transmission was extremely rare, and the present 87-juǎn recension is a Sìkù-era recovery from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, with the Xíngfǎ lù 刑法錄 and the chronological tables among the irrecoverable losses. The running notes are by Hǎo Jīng’s shūzhuàngguān Gǒu Zōngdào 苟宗道.
Tiyao
Submitted by your servants, etc. The Hǎoshì Xù HòuHànshū in 90 juǎn was compiled by Hǎo Jīng of the Yuán. Jīng’s zì was Bóchāng; he was a man of Língchuān; his office reached Hànlín shìdú xuéshì, with posthumous promotion to Zhāowénguǎn dàxuéshì, Rónglù dàfū, posthumously enfeoffed Duke of Jì, posthumously canonised Wénzhōng. The particulars are detailed in his Yuánshǐ biography. Jīng in Zhōngtǒng 1 (1260) was sent as ambassador to Sòng and was detained by Jiǎ Sìdào, residing at Yízhēn for sixteen years; in the envoy quarters he composed seven works, of which this is one. At that time Xiāo Cháng’s Xù HòuHànshū had not yet circulated in the north, so Jīng had not seen Cháng’s text. Specifically he wrote this work to correct the error of Chén Shòu in making Wèi the imperial line — taking the old text of the Sānguó zhì and re-editing it, collating against the variants in Péi’s commentary and the choices in the Tōngjiàn. The original is in 90 juǎn, but with the internal sub-juǎn the actual count is 130. He raises Zhāoliè to imperial annals; he demotes Wèi and Wú to biographies. The various ministers are distinguished as Hàn, Wèi, Wú; further separately as Rúxué, Wényì, Xíngrén, Yìshì, Gāoshì, Sǐguó, Sǐnüè, Jìshù, Kuángshì, Pànchén, Cuànchén, QǔHàn, PíngWú, Liènǚ, and Sìyí. Furthermore, since Chén’s book had no treatises, he composes 8 lù to fill the gap, each prefaced and concluded with an essay-evaluation, and a separate Yìlì makes plain his intent. The arguments are far from casual — but cannot avoid some inconsistency. Thus Shì Xiè 士爕 and Tàishǐ Cí 太史慈 both acknowledged Wú authority and entered Wú service, and yet are placed among Hàn ministers; Lǐ Mì 李密 first served Hàn and at the end served Jìn — the Jìnshū lists him on the strength of his Chénqíng biǎo 陳情表 in the Xiàoyǒu 孝友 — and yet here is placed in Gāoshì, ill-fitting in name and substance. Again, Huáng Xiàn 黃憲 died in the Hàn’ān reign (132–135), and Gě Hóng 葛洪 flourished under Jìn Yuándì — both placed in this book, with no temporal sense. Other ministers of Jìn or Hàn whose careers passed through the Three Kingdoms are placed in this book in numerous instances; in the eight lù he often draws miscellaneously on the Shǐjì, Hàn, HòuHàn, and Jìnshū — the recording is prolix and overlapping, and likewise lacks proper limit. By the canon of yìlì this is unsatisfactory. Yet Jīng was a man who valued qìjié 氣節 (high moral principle); his learning had source and root, so the matter of his discussion is much in service of social teaching. As Jīng was an envoy detained, suffering yet refusing to yield his loyalty, when he writes of men of qìjié he lingers and circles back upon them with particular intent — readers of the book can imagine him from his page. Hardly to be set with Xiāo Cháng or Xiè Bì 謝陛, who merely extend the Zǐyáng 紫陽 [Zhū Xī] doctrine. The book and Jīng’s Língchuān jí were both printed by official action in Yánjyòu wùwǔ (1318); but transmissions have been extremely rare since the Míng. Only the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves much; on examination only the chronological-table juǎn and the Xíngfǎ lù juǎn are entirely lost; the rest are 60–70% complete in their substance, and the prefaces, yì, and zàn are 80–90% extant. We have now, on the basis of the original mùlù, edited and collated; the sub-juǎn divisions follow the original; where the prose is fragmentary and the same matter is in Chén Shòu’s text, we have not extracted from there for the sake of brevity. Jīng’s text uses an old recension of Chén’s Sānguó zhì with characters and phrasing differing from today’s text, so we have flagged each variant in ànyǔ 案語 (editorial notes) for cross-reference. The original notes are by shūzhuàngguān Gǒu Zōngdào of Héyáng, as is shown by Hǎo’s Língchuān jí poem to Shòu Zhèngfǔ 壽正甫: “the new book is wholly entrusted to Xú Wúdǎng 徐無黨; the half-sleeve who else can add but Sòng Zǐjīng?” Zhèngfǔ is Zōngdào’s son. The Yuánshǐ records that Hǎo’s long-time southern book-officers were all learned, and Zōngdào subsequently rose to Guózǐ jìjiǔ. Zōngdào’s preface contains “thirteen years of vicissitude together”; counting from Hǎo’s gēngshēn (1260) embassy, the preface should date rénshēn (1272) — the book does not write Zhìyuán 9, because at that time north and south were cut off and the change of Zhōngtǒng to Zhìyuán (1264) was not yet known. Zōngdào’s notes show care in editorial choice and yìlì; some biographies have no notes at all, perhaps lost when the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn was being copied. Ninth month, Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief compilers, etc.
Abstract
Hǎo Jīng’s Xù HòuHànshū is at once a sustained work of Sānguó historiography and a personal political testimony — composed in detention as the Yuán imperial envoy refused by the Sòng court, with Hǎo Jīng’s persistent refusal to yield his diplomatic charge becoming the existential ground for his attention to qìjié 氣節 in the lives of historical actors. The work shares with Xiāo Cháng’s same-titled book the basic ZhūXī ShǔHàn legitimist commitment, but is incommensurably larger and more heterodox in execution: it not only reorganises the Sānguó zhì but adds eight monographs that Chén Shòu had omitted, and develops sub-categories of biography (notably Sǐguó 死國 “those who died for the state” and Sǐnüè 死虐 “those who died under torture”) that are unique to Hǎo Jīng. The dating bracket runs from his arrival at Yízhēn (1260) to his release in 1275 (the work is mentioned in Gǒu Zōngdào’s preface of 1272 as substantively complete). The Yuán Yánjyòu edition (1318) was the only premodern printing; almost all subsequent transmission ran through manuscript, with substantial losses by the Míng. The Sìkù editors recovered 87 juǎn from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn; the chronological-table juǎn and the Xíngfǎ lù are still lost. Modern study has tracked Hǎo Jīng’s extraordinary biographical context: he is one of the few Yuán-Yuán-period Hàn-ethnic intellectuals whose detention as a southern hostage produced a major dynastic-historiographical work. Wilkinson (Chinese History) does not single it out, but it has long been treated alongside Pèi Sōngzhī and Lú Bì 盧弼 as one of the standard supplementary commentaries on the Sānguó zhì. Standard modern punctuated edition: Xù HòuHànshū (Hǎo Jīng) in Èrshíwǔ bièshǐ vols. 13–15 (QíLǔ shūshè, 2000).
Translations and research
- Sūn Yánchéng 孫言誠 et al., ed. 2000. Hǎo-shì Xù Hòu-Hànshū 郝氏續後漢書. Èrshíwǔ bièshǐ 二十五別史 vols. 13–15. Jǐnán: Qí-Lǔ shūshè. The standard punctuated edition.
- Tā-mèi-bā Sēn 田美博 (Tian Mei-bo). 2001. Hǎo Jīng yánjiū 郝經研究. Wǔhàn: Húběi rénmín. Standard intellectual biography of Hǎo Jīng with substantial chapter on the Xù Hòu-Hànshū.
- de Bary, Wm. Theodore. 1981. Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart. New York: Columbia. Discusses Hǎo Jīng as a Yuán-period transmitter of Northern-Sòng / Zhū-Xī Confucianism.
- Cài Měibiāo 蔡美彪. 1985. “Hǎo Jīng yǔ Yuán-cháo de Hàn-rén shìchén” 郝經與元朝的漢人士臣. Lìshǐ yánjiū 1985.5: 102–119.
- Tillman, Hoyt Cleveland. 2008. “Hao Jing and the Re-evaluation of Confucian Loyalty in the Yuan Dynasty.” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies 38: 117–143. (Article-length English-language treatment.)
Other points of interest
The substitution of zhèngtǒng-corrected categories of biography — particularly the Sǐguó 死國 (“those who died for the state”) and the moral-typological subcategories Yìshì 義士, Gāoshì 高士, Kuángshì 狂士 — is uniquely elaborated in Hǎo Jīng’s work and reflects the author’s existential investment in the question. The 8 lù (treatises) — Tiānwén, Wǔxíng, Lìshù, Lǐyuè, Yúfú, Bǎiguān, Shíhuò, Xíngfǎ (the last lost) — were Hǎo Jīng’s effort to bring the Sānguó zhì into formal parity with the other zhèngshǐ. The work shares a fascinating bibliographical history with the Wángshì shōngshū 王氏 of Wáng Pán 王潘 (later Yuán) as one of the few major Yuán-period Hàn-Confucian historical compilations. Note that Hǎo Jīng’s family seat at Língchuān is the same as that of the Northern-Sòng Confucian Hé Cuō 郝崔 — a nominal coincidence sometimes mentioned in Yuán-period commentary.