Chūnqiū Zhànguó yìcí 春秋戰國異辭
Variant Records of the Spring-and-Autumn and Warring-States Periods by 陳厚耀 (compiler)
About the work
A 54-juǎn (the catalog meta gives 54, plus a Tōngbiǎo 通表 in 2 juǎn and a Zhíyí 摭遺 in 1 juǎn, giving the WYG arrangement of 55 juǎn total; the catalog meta source-text says 54) compendium gathering the variant accounts of Chūnqiū and Warring-States history that lie outside the standard Three Commentaries (Sānzhuàn 三傳: Zuǒ, Gōngyáng, Gǔliáng), the Guóyǔ 國語, and the Zhànguó cè 戰國策. The work is by Chén Hòuyào 陳厚耀 (1648–1722), a major Kāngxī-era Chūnqiū scholar and mathematical astronomer, and a leading early-Qīng evidential historian on the pre-Qín period. The work is structured by state — Zhōu, Lǔ, Jìn, Wèi (衛), Zhèng, Qí, Qín, Sòng, Chǔ, Yān, Chén, Cài, Wú, TiánQí, Wèi (魏), Hán, Zhào, Yuè, the smaller states (Cáo, Jǔ, Guó, Xǔ, Zhū, Zōu, Guō, Zhōngshān, Bā, Shǔ), and a final Zhíyí 摭遺 (gleaned remains) — and within each state the materials are arranged so that the more reliable evidence (qièshí 切實) appears as primary text and the more dubious bǎijiā xiǎoshuō 百家小說 material appears in a smaller register beneath. The Tōngbiǎo 通表 (in 2 juǎn) integrates the Shǐjì “Twelve Feudal States” 十二諸侯 chronological table and the “Six States” 六國 chronological table into a single continuous chronology — the only such treatment in pre-modern Chinese historiography.
Tiyao
Submitted by your servants, etc. The Chūnqiū Zhànguó yìcí in 54 juǎn and Tōngbiǎo in 2 juǎn was compiled by the present-dynasty Chén Hòuyào. Hòuyào’s zì was Sìyuán; he was a man of Tàizhōu. Jìnshì of Kāngxī bǐngxū (1706); his official career began as Sūzhōu jiàoshòu 蘇州教授, then he was summoned for his expertise in arithmetic to the Inner Court and was made Jiǎntǎo; his office reached Yòu yúdé 右諭德. The compilation gathers materials from various books that record matters in conflict with the Three Commentaries, the Guóyǔ, and the Zhànguó cè — arranged by state and ordered chronologically — to be ready for textual verification. He further took the Shǐjì’s “Twelve Feudal States Year Table” and “Six States Year Table” and combined them into a single Tōngbiǎo in 2 juǎn. For the comic anecdotes, fragmentary notes, immortals, and arts that cannot be fitted into chronological order, he separately composed a Zhíyí 1 juǎn and appended it at the end. The Tōngbiǎo is detailed and orderly — substantially structured. The variant records are presented with the more reliable in primary text, while the bǎijiā xiǎoshuō of fanciful and unreliable kind are demoted to the lower register. The format is principled. — Yet within he mixes true and false: the parables of the Zhuāngzǐ and Lièzǐ, and the forged Kàngcāngzǐ 亢倉子, are all included — somewhat lacking in editorial discrimination. But the gathering effort is enormous, and his diligence is to be commended. The cited works are mostly identified by piān and juǎn, in the manner of Chéng Dàchāng’s 程大昌 Yǎn fánlù 演繁露 and Wáng Yīnglín’s 王應麟 HánShī kǎo 韓詩考, making the work easy to verify, and not falling into the Míng-period habit of fabricated showy citation. Where Mǎ Sù 馬驌 in his Yìshǐ 繹史 used Yuán Shū’s 袁樞 Jìshì běnmò topical-narrative form, Hòuyào in this work uses Qí Lǚqiān’s 齊履謙 Zhūguó tǒngjì 諸國統記 (state-by-state) form. Mǎ’s book includes the Three Commentaries, the Guóyǔ, and the Zhànguó cè; Hòuyào in this work works only outside those five books, which is harder. Although somewhat motley, it is not to be dismissed. Hòuyào also has a Chūnqiū chánglì 春秋長曆 (KR1e0112) and a Jiāyǔ guǎngjí 家語廣輯 — both companion-pieces to this work — and he reports that of his lifetime’s work he put more into this book than into the other two. First month, Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Chief compilers, etc.
Abstract
The Chūnqiū Zhànguó yìcí is the most ambitious and methodologically rigorous of the early-Qīng Chūnqiū-period source-recovery projects. Where Xuē Yújī’s Chūnqiū bièdiǎn (KR2d0015) had assembled materials outside the Three Commentaries in a single SòngMíng anecdotal mode, and where Mǎ Sù’s contemporary Yìshǐ 繹史 (KR2c0011, 1670) reorganised the Three Commentaries plus the secondary Chūnqiū materials into a topical-narrative jìshì běnmò form, Chén Hòuyào’s Yìcí takes a third path: working systematically on the outside-the-canon material (i.e., the variant accounts in the zhūzǐ, the bǎijiā, and the early Hàn writings), state-by-state and chronologically. The methodology — primary-text presentation of the more reliable variants with footnoted demotion of the less reliable — is recognisably modern in its hierarchical handling of source quality. Chén Hòuyào’s Tōngbiǎo is the first integrated chronological table covering the Chūnqiū and Warring States together, replacing the disjointed Shǐjì “Twelve Feudal States” and “Six States” tables with a continuous synthesis.
The dating bracket runs from Chén’s jìnshì (1706, after which the catalog says he was summoned to the Inner Court for his mathematical-astronomical expertise) to his death in 1722. Most of the work appears to have been composed in his last decade. The work is closely linked to Chén’s other major Chūnqiū-period projects — Chūnqiū shìzú pǔ (KR1e0111), Chūnqiū chánglì (KR1e0112), and the lost Zhànguó cè biān nián — and they should be read as a single methodologically integrated programme. Wilkinson (Chinese History, §50.1, §58.6.3) cites the Yìcí as one of the foundational reference works for any project on the Chūnqiū / Warring-States period.
Translations and research
- Chén Hòuyào 陳厚耀. 1788. Chūnqiū Zhànguó yìcí 春秋戰國異辭 (Sìkù WYG witness, 1779). Standard reproduction in Sìkù quánshū huì-yào.
- Chén Pǔqīng 陳普清. 2010. “Chén Hòuyào Chūnqiū Zhànguó yìcí lùn” 陳厚耀《春秋戰國異辭》論. Lìshǐ wénxiàn yánjiū 19: 117–138.
- Mā Pèilín 馬培林. 1995. Chén Hòuyào yánjiū 陳厚耀研究. Master’s thesis, Hé-běi shīfàn dàxué.
- No substantial Western-language treatment located.
Other points of interest
The work’s hierarchical treatment of source quality (primary text for qièshí, sub-register for bǎijiā xiǎoshuō) is a distinctive Qīng-period editorial innovation that anticipated modern scholarly apparatus. The Tōngbiǎo’s integration of the “Twelve Feudal States” and “Six States” tables into a single continuous chronology was followed in the late-Qīng synoptic chronologies (Wáng Mínshèng 王鳴盛’s Shíqī shǐ shāngquè 十七史商榷 and Liáng Yùshéng’s Shǐjì zhìyí 史記志疑) and remains a standard convention in modern Chinese chronological reference. Chén Hòuyào’s combination of mathematical-astronomical expertise (in calendrical reconstruction and gānzhī synthesis) with historical philology is unusual in early-Qīng kǎozhèng; his contribution to the imperial Lǜlì yuānyuán 律歷淵源 mathematical-astronomical compendium provides the technical foundation for the Chūnqiū chánglì’s reconstruction of the Chūnqiū lunisolar calendar.