Dōngshān guóyǔ 東山國語
Discourses of the States, by [Zhā] Dōngshān by 查繼佐 (compiler), with completion-notes by 沈仲方
About the work
A late-Míng / early-Qīng historical compilation by Zhā Jìzuǒ 查繼佐 (1601–1677, hào Dōngshān 東山, hence the title) on the Southern Míng courts and the Míng-loyalist resistance, modelled in form on the early Guóyǔ 國語 (“Discourses of the States”) — that is, a series of regionally-organised collections of speeches, anecdotes, and biographical narratives. The work is unpaginated (bùfēn juǎn 不分卷); the SBCK edition organises the material under regional sections including the Zhèyǔ 浙語 (Zhèjiāng), Mǐnyǔ 閩語 (Fújiàn, the Lóngwǔ court), Yuèyǔ 粵語 (Guǎngdōng / Guǎngxī, the Yǒnglì court), and Diānyǔ 滇語 (Yúnnán, the late Yǒnglì court). Composed in secret over the same decades as the Zuìwéi lù (KR2d0017) and concealed in the same Hǎiníng cache, the Dōngshān guóyǔ is a sister-work — but where the Zuìwéi lù is a comprehensive jìzhuàn dynastic history of the entire Míng, the Guóyǔ concentrates on the Southern-Míng resistance period (1644–1662). It preserves substantial first-hand or near-first-hand testimony on the Lǔwáng 魯王 court at Shàoxīng (where Zhā had served briefly in 1645–46), on the Zhèjiāng coastal and inland resistance figures (Gāo Dài 高岱, Zhāng Cāngshuǐ 張蒼水, Zhāng Huángyán 張煌言), and on the yímín 遺民 networks of mid-seventeenth-century Jiāngnán. The bǔshù 補述 (“completion of the narrative”) is by Zhā’s associate Shěn Zhòngfāng 沈仲方, who took up Zhā’s autograph manuscript notes after Zhā’s death and brought them to a publishable form.
Tiyao
Abstract
The Dōngshān guóyǔ is one of the most important Hàn-language sources on the Southern-Míng coastal resistance — the Lǔwáng 魯王 jiānguó in Zhèjiāng (1645–53), the late-period Zhèng family operations off the Fújiàn coast, and the Yúnnán Yǒnglì court down to its extinction in Burma in 1662. Its complement to the Zuìwéi lù (KR2d0017) is methodological as well as topical: where the Zuìwéi lù applies the formal structure of the jìzhuàn dynastic history, the Guóyǔ uses the looser, anecdotal-discursive form of the early Guóyǔ — collecting speeches, dialogues, and “remembrance” passages that capture the texture of resistance loyalty in a way that the zhèngshǐ form cannot. The work is the principal source for the biographies of many Zhèjiāng resistance figures who do not appear in the Qīndìng Míngshǐ (KR2a0026) and whose name was politically dangerous to mention through the high Qīng. Modern study (Wáng Yányán 王延元 1985; Lynn Struve 1984) has emphasised the work’s distinctive value as oral and near-oral testimony, gathered by Zhā Jìzuǒ from refugees and survivors over decades.
The dating bracket parallels that of the Zuìwéi lù: ca. 1648 (Zhā’s earliest documented historical writing under Qīng) to 1677 (Zhā’s death; Shěn Zhòngfāng’s bǔshù completion-work continued through the late seventeenth century). Wilkinson (Chinese History) does not single out the work, but Lynn Struve’s The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (Yale, 1984) treats it as a major source.
Translations and research
- Struve, Lynn A. 1984. The Southern Ming, 1644–1662. New Haven: Yale University Press. The standard English-language history; uses the Dōngshān guóyǔ alongside the Zuì-wéi lù and other Southern-Míng sources.
- Wáng Yányán 王延元. 1985. “Zhā Jìzuǒ Dōngshān guóyǔ yánjiū” 查繼佐《東山國語》研究. Lìshǐ wénxiàn yánjiū 4: 89–110.
- Cuī Jūn 崔軍. 2009. Zhā Jìzuǒ yǔ Zuì-wéi lù yánjiū 查繼佐與《罪惟錄》研究. Běijīng: Rénmín. Chapter 5 treats the Dōngshān guóyǔ as companion-piece.
- Zhā Jìzuǒ 查繼佐. 1936. Dōngshān guóyǔ 東山國語. Sìbù cóngkān sānbiān 四部叢刊三編. Shànghǎi: Shāngwù. First publication.
Other points of interest
The very title — borrowed from the early-Hàn Guóyǔ 國語 (the canonical “Discourses of the States” attributed to Zuǒ Qiūmíng 左丘明, KR2c0001) — is itself a programmatic statement: Zhā Jìzuǒ frames the Southern-Míng courts not as the dying remnants of a finished dynasty but as the contending “states” of a new political situation, modelled on the multi-state Spring-and-Autumn period. The work’s distinctive narrative voice — sympathetic, anecdotal, often elegiac — has earned it a reputation in twentieth-century scholarship as one of the literary high points of Míng-loyalist historiography, alongside Tán Qiān’s Guóquè and Huáng Zōngxī’s 黃宗羲 Hǎiwài tòngkū jì 海外慟哭記.