Wǔdài shǐ quèwén 五代史闕文
Missing Material from the History of the Five Dynasties by 王禹偁 (compiler)
About the work
A short critical supplement of 17 items to the Sòng official Wǔdài shǐ 五代史 (the so-called Old Five Dynasties History, Jiù Wǔdài shǐ 舊五代史) compiled by Xuē Jūzhèng 薛居正 and others (974), composed by the Northern-Sòng scholar Wáng Yǔchēng 王禹偁 (954–1001) during his term as a Hànlín Academician under Zhēnzōng (998–1001). Distributed across the five dynastic histories (3 items on Liáng, 7 on Hòu Táng, 1 on Jìn, 2 on Hàn, 4 on Zhōu), each item supplies a missing or distorted passage with critical comment. The most famous item is the “Three-Arrow” (sān shǐ 三矢) Lord-Grandfather (gào miào 告廟) anecdote of Lǐ Cúnxù 李存勖, taken over verbatim by Ōuyáng Xiū into the Língguān zhuàn 伶官傳 of his Xīn Wǔdài shǐ 新五代史 KR2b0024. Despite its slight bulk, the work is one of the foundational late-Táng / Five-Dynasties source-critical interventions, and its corrections shaped both the Xīn Tángshū and the Xīn Wǔdài shǐ.
Tiyao
Composed by Wáng Yǔchēng 王禹偁 of Sòng (the source has 玉禹偁 as a typographical slip). Yǔchēng’s zì was Yuánzhī 元之; he was a man of Jùyě 鉅野 (in modern Shāndōng). He took the jìnshì in Tàipíng Xīngguó 8 (983) and rose to Prefect of Huángzhōu 知黃州. His record is in his biography in the Sòngshǐ. The book opens with his own preface, undated. Examining the entry on Zhōu Shìzōng 周世宗’s despatching an emissary to instruct Wáng Jùn 王峻: he annotates “the emissary was Luó Shǒusù 羅守素, formerly Defender-in-Chief of Shāngzhōu 商州” and that Luó had told him personally what follows. This places the work after his demotion from Left Reminder (zuǒ sījiàn 左司諫) to Vice Defender of Shāngzhōu. His own running title gives him as Hànlín Academician — placing it at the start of the Zhēnzōng reign (998–1001). At that time the Wǔdài shǐ of Xuē Jūzhèng et al. was already complete; presumably he wrote this to fill its lacunae. But Xuē et al.’s book is in 150 juǎn and his preface says “I read the Wǔdài shǐ in 360 juǎn total” — so it does not seem to mean the Xuē compilation. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì says the work has 17 items in all. The present text has 3 items on Liáng, 7 on Hòu Táng, 1 on Jìn, 2 on Hàn, and 4 on Zhōu — agreeing with Cháo’s count. So the present text seems to follow the older one. Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎’s Xiāngzǔ bǐjì 香祖筆記 says: “Wáng Yuánzhī’s Wǔdài shǐ quèwén is only one juǎn but its critical argumentation is so rigorous it is enough to correct the errors of the official historians. The clarification of Sīkōng Tú 司空圖’s pure and great character is especially the basis for a ten-thousand-year just verdict — not a small matter. The narration of Zhuāngzōng’s three-arrow declaration to the ancestral temple is so vivid as to live and breathe father and son both, and Ōuyáng’s Wǔdài shǐ Língguān zhuàn takes it whole, becoming a classic. The treatment of Zhāng Quányì 張全義 as a treacherous minister of a chaotic age accords deeply with the Chūnqiū judgment, but Ōuyáng did not adopt it; in his Quányì biography he scarcely censures him, simply taking over the old history’s text. The final word should be with Yuánzhī.” His advocacy is high. Examining the Wǔdài shǐ: many items on Zhū Quányù 朱全昱, Zhāng Chéngyè 張承業, Wáng Shūfēi 王淑妃, Princess of Xǔ Cóngyì 許王從益, Zhōu Shìzōng’s empress Fú 周世宗符皇后, etc., are taken from this book. The Xīn Tángshū “Sīkōng Tú” biography rests entirely on Yǔchēng’s account. So though small in extent, the work was already at the time treated as authoritative.
Abstract
Wáng Yǔchēng 王禹偁 (954–1001), one of the most important early Northern-Sòng gǔwén 古文 advocates and critical historians, composed this 17-item quèwén (literally “missing text”) to the official Sòng-period Wǔdài shǐ during his last term at Hànlín under Zhēnzōng (998–1001), hence the date bracket here. The Sìkù compilers note that the text in his preface refers to a Wǔdài shǐ in 360 juǎn, which cannot be the official Xuē Jūzhèng Jiù Wǔdài shǐ (150 juǎn) — possibly an aggregate with parallel histories — but the body of the text is unambiguously a critical supplement to the Xuē compilation. Each item works through a specific event: misreported genealogies, doubtful causes of death, misjudged characters. The most influential single item is the “Three-Arrow Declaration” (sān shǐ gào miào 三矢告廟) of Lǐ Cúnxù 李存勖 — Wáng Yǔchēng’s narrative was taken over almost verbatim by Ōuyáng Xiū into the Língguān zhuàn 伶官傳 of his Xīn Wǔdài shǐ, where it became one of the most celebrated set-pieces in Sòng historical writing. The work’s critical reassessment of Sīkōng Tú 司空圖 (the late-Táng poet and martyr) was likewise taken over by the Xīn Tángshū into Sīkōng Tú’s biography, while Ōuyáng Xiū did not accept Wáng Yǔchēng’s harsh judgment of Zhāng Quányì 張全義. The work was already treated as authoritative in the early Sòng and is the foundational text-critical intervention in the Five Dynasties tradition before Ōuyáng Xiū’s full Xīn Wǔdài shǐ.
Translations and research
- Richard L. Davis, trans. and ed. 2004. Historical Records of the Five Dynasties (Ouyang Xiu, Xin Wudai shi). New York: Columbia University Press. (Includes substantial discussion of Wáng Yǔchēng’s quèwén in its critical apparatus.)
- Charles Hartman. 2014. “Sōng Government and Politics.” In John W. Chaffee and Denis Twitchett, eds., The Cambridge History of China, vol. 5.2. (Treats Wáng Yǔchēng as a representative early-Sòng critical historian.)
- Yán Yìpíng 嚴一萍 (collator). Wǔdài shǐ quèwén jiào jì 五代史闕文校記.
- No substantial dedicated Western-language monograph on Wáng Yǔchēng’s historiography.
- The Cóngshū jíchéng chū biān edition is the most accessible reading text in Chinese.
Other points of interest
The work is a salutary reminder that Sòng-period source criticism — not simply Sòng-period antiquarianism — already addressed itself to the histories of immediately preceding dynasties, and that the composition of the Xīn Wǔdài shǐ was responsive to such individual scholarly interventions. Wáng Yǔchēng was also one of Ōuyáng Xiū’s most important predecessors in the gǔwén movement, and the stylistic affinity of the Língguān zhuàn to the quèwén parallel is the textual fingerprint of an explicit literary debt.