Píng Sòng lù 平宋錄
Record of the Pacification of the Sòng by 劉敏中 (compiler)
About the work
A 3-juǎn contemporary record of the Yuán conquest of the Southern Sòng — specifically of the campaign of 1276 (Zhìyuán 至元 13) under the Mongol commander Bayan 巴顏 leading to the surrender of Lín’ān 臨安 and the northward removal of the boy-emperor Gōngdì 恭帝 (the Sòng Yǐngguógōng 瀛國公) — by the early-Yuán Confucian official Liú Mǐnzhōng 劉敏中 (1243–1318). Also titled Dà Yuán hùnyī píng Sòng shílù 大元混一平宋實錄 and Bǐngzǐ píng Sòng lù 丙子平宋錄. Contains three early-Yuán prefaces by Dèng Qí 鄧錡, Fāng Huí 方回, and Zhōu Míng 周明 (dated Dàdé 8 jiǎzǐ, i.e. 1304). The work was traditionally — including by Huáng Yúzǐ’s 黃虞稷 Qiānqǐngtáng shūmù 千頃堂書目 — attributed to Píng Qìng’ān 平慶安 (the Hángzhōu-route prison warden Yānshān 燕山-jiā Píng Qìng’ān 平慶安); the Sìkù compilers establish that Píng Qìng’ān merely cut the printing-blocks for the work in 1304, while the actual author was Liú Mǐnzhōng.
Tiyao
The older attribution gives “Compiled by the Hángzhōu-route Prison Warden Yānshānjiā Píng Qìng’ān 燕山平慶安.” Also titled Dà Yuán hùnyī píng Sòng shílù 大元混一平宋實錄 and Bǐngzǐ píng Sòng lù 丙子平宋錄. Contains three prefaces dated Dàdé jiǎzǐ 大德甲辰 (1304) by Dèng Qí 鄧錡, Fāng Huí 方回, and Zhōu Míng 周明. It records Bayan 巴顏’s reduction of Lín’ān in Zhìyuán 13 (1276) and the northward removal of the boy Sòng emperor — broadly in agreement with the standard history. Only the Yuán Shìzǔ’s rescript ennobling the boy emperor as Yǐngguógōng 瀛國公, Bayan’s congratulatory memorial, and the posthumous-honor item for the Hénán-route Military Commissioner Zhèng Jiāng 鄭江 are absent from the standard history and worth checking. The work is listed in Huáng Yúzǐ’s Qiānqǐngtáng shūmù under Liú Mǐnzhōng. Examining Zhōu Míng’s preface: it says Píng Qìng’ān petitioned the Provincial Government, requested the addition of further imperial honors and posthumous title to Bayan, the establishment of a shrine at the eastern side of the Wǔxué 武學 within the Wǔchéngwángmiào 武成王廟 (Temple of the Martial Sage), and the cutting of printing-blocks for Wáng xíngshí 王行實 to circulate. After this there is also a one-line note: “On a jiǎxū day in the eighth month of Dàdé 8 (case-note: Dàdé 1 was jiǎchén; the ninth month of Dàdé 8 should give jiǎxū — this is contemporary local-usage and does not match the older standard, here noted), Yānshānjiā Píng Qìng’ān cut the blocks and printed the Píng Sòng lù.” Neither says anything of his having newly authored the work. So the work was actually authored by Liú Mǐnzhōng; Qìng’ān merely cut the blocks for transmission to posterity. Because his name does not appear at the head of the book, no closer examination was made and the attribution was given to Qìng’ān. Now we restore Mǐnzhōng’s name as the author, in keeping with the truth. Mǐnzhōng’s zì was Duānfǔ 端甫; he was a man of Zhāngqiū 章邱 (in Shāndōng). Beginning as Bureau Drafter (zhōngshū yuàn 中書掾) he rose to Hànlín Academy Recipient of Edicts; on his death he was posthumously enfeoffed Duke of Qí 齊國公. His record is in his biography in the Yuánshǐ.
Abstract
The Píng Sòng lù of Liú Mǐnzhōng 劉敏中 (1243–1318, zì Duānfǔ 端甫, of Zhāngqiū 章邱; posthumously enfeoffed Duke of Qí 齊國公) is the principal contemporary Yuán-side record of the conquest of the Southern Sòng — specifically the 1276 (bǐngzǐ) campaign under Bayan 巴顏 (Bàiyán) that led to the surrender of Lín’ān, the abdication of the boy-emperor Sòng Gōngdì 恭帝, and his northward removal as Yǐngguógōng 瀛國公. Compared to the standard Yuánshǐ and Sòngshǐ accounts, the work uniquely preserves the Yuán Shìzǔ’s rescript of ennoblement, Bayan’s congratulatory memorial, and the posthumous-honors item for the Sòng officer Zhèng Jiāng 鄭江. Date bracket here is 1276 (the year of the events recorded) to 1318 (Liú Mǐnzhōng’s death). Composition is presumably some considerable years after 1276, since Liú Mǐnzhōng was only 33 when Lín’ān fell and his historiographical career belongs to his middle-and-late years. The work was printed (kè bǎn) by the Hángzhōu-route prison warden Píng Qìng’ān 平慶安 in Dàdé 8 (1304), with prefaces by Dèng Qí 鄧錡, Fāng Huí 方回, and Zhōu Míng 周明. Because Liú Mǐnzhōng’s name was not on the head of the printed work, later bibliography (notably Huáng Yúzǐ’s Qiānqǐngtáng shūmù) misattributed it to Píng Qìng’ān; the Sìkù compilers, working from internal evidence in Zhōu Míng’s preface, restore the true authorship. The attribution as Yuán imperial-state-narrative is strongly inflected by triumphalist rhetoric (hùnyī 混一 = “unification by force-coercion”), but the documentary materials it preserves are valuable.
Translations and research
- Hok-lam Chan. 1984. Legitimation in Imperial China. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Cites the Píng Sòng lù on Yuán dynastic justification rhetoric.
- Morris Rossabi. 1988. Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times. Berkeley: University of California Press. Discusses Bayan and the Sòng campaign.
- Richard L. Davis. 1996. Wind against the Mountain: The Crisis of Politics and Culture in Thirteenth-Century China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.
- Patricia B. Ebrey. 2014. Emperor Huizong; and the same author’s recent monograph on the Sòng-Yuán transition.
- Modern editions: critical reprint in Cóngshū jíchéng chū biān; Píng Sòng lù (Beijing: Zhōnghuá shūjú, in Jīng-Jīn-Yuán bǐjì cóngkān 金元筆記叢刊, 2002).
Other points of interest
The Píng Sòng lù is the principal Yuán-side document of the conquest narrative. Its 1304 cutting of blocks by Píng Qìng’ān, with the simultaneous request for further canonization of Bayan and the establishment of a shrine in the Temple of the Martial Sage (where it stood beside earlier campaign commemorations), shows the Yuán court’s deliberate ritual entrenchment of the conquest narrative a generation after the events.