Shìzōng Xiànhuángdì zhūpī yùzhǐ 世宗憲皇帝硃批諭旨
Yōngzhèng’s Vermilion-Rescript Imperial Pronouncements by 世宗胤禛 (敕編)
About the work
A massive 360-juàn anthology of zhūpī yùzhǐ 硃批諭旨 — the vermilion-brush rescripts personally added by the Yōngzhèng emperor to the secret memorials (zòuzhé 奏摺) of provincial officials. The compilation was personally commissioned by Yōngzhèng with an imperial shàngyù preface dated Yōngzhèng 10 / 3 / 1 (1732). Editorial work continued into the early Qiánlóng reign and was concluded in Qiánlóng 3 (1738). The 360 juàn preserve memorials and rescripts from 223 named officials, organized by author (with prolific officials assigned multiple juàn and minor figures grouped together). The work is the largest single Qīng imperial-document compilation and one of the most important sources for the actual practice of Qīng provincial administration.
Tiyao
Yōngzhèng’s own preface (the imperial shàngyù of Yōngzhèng 10 / 3 / 1, 1732) explains the work’s origin in the first person. He recalls that on his accession in 1722 he was inexperienced in administration; following Kāngxī’s heavy charge, he laboured day and night to learn governance, but his eyes and ears were narrow, his knowledge incomplete. Therefore he ordered all inner-and-outer officials to submit zòuzhé memorials directly to him, broadening his consultation. Where the matters were clearly actionable, he gave orders; where ambiguous, he sent them to the relevant board for deliberation, or in confidence directed the governors-general and governors to deliberate; where the matter required guidance or admonishment, he wrote his replies on the memorials themselves — sometimes “scores of words, sometimes hundreds of words, and there are some that exceed a thousand words; all from a single mind.” The contents (he protests) are not infallible but are the genuine expression of his concern: “to teach men toward goodness, to caution them against wrong; to show them the way to settle the people and inspect officials; to instruct them in cultivating virtue and enriching life; to clarify the principle of fortune-following-good and disaster-following-evil; to encourage them to preserve sincerity and remove falsity.” For the years 1722 through about 1727 he was at his desk daily — interviewing court ministers in the day, reading memorials at evening, working by lamp until the second or third watch (i.e. 9 to 11 p.m.), “six years as one day, witnessed by my close attendants and inner-court ministers.” In 1732, finding more than ten thousand returned-rescript memorials in his archives, he ordered the principal portion to be compiled and printed — about two- or three-tenths of the total. He hopes through this that the people will see his diligence and his “feeling of not daring to slacken in repaying my Sage-Father.” The Sìkù tíyào (1779) emphasizes that — in contrast to the dynastic memorials of all previous ages, which were either summarily endorsed (the legendary “phoenix-tail” nuò 諾) or replied to by Hànlín drafters as form-set pīdá 批答 — the zhūpī of Yōngzhèng are unprecedented in the history of writing: “from the time of letters and tallies onward never seen or heard.” Reverently presented in the third month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Chief Editors: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Zhūpī yùzhǐ are the foundational documentary monument of Yōngzhèng’s reign and one of the principal source-bodies for the social and economic history of early-eighteenth-century China. The work has been extensively used by twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholarship for: the huǒhào guīgōng and yǎnglián yín fiscal reforms (Madeleine Zelin); the Miáo and Southwest minorities campaigns; the Yùnnán copper-mining industry (Yang Yuda); the Yellow River and Grand Canal water management; and the Lóngzàng canon project. Many memorials by provincial governors are preserved here in fuller form than in any other source. The Sìkù editors’ decision to retain the work in its entirety — without abridgement — is unusual and reflects its perceived institutional centrality. Yōngzhèng’s own shàngyù preface is itself a remarkable autobiographical document, one of the few first-person reflections by a Chinese emperor on the actual labour of governance.
Translations and research
- Pierre-Étienne Will, Bureaucratie et famine en Chine au 18e siècle (Mouton, 1980) — uses the zhū-pī extensively.
- Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate’s Tael (1984).
- Beatrice S. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers (1991).
- Jonathan Spence, Treason by the Book (Viking, 2001) — case studies derived in part from the zhū-pī.
- Yāng Qǐ-qiáo 楊啟樵, Yōngzhèng dì jí qí zhū-pī yù-zhǐ 雍正帝及其硃批諭旨 (Yuelu, 1989).
Other points of interest
The text is a key source for understanding the secret-memorial (zòuzhé) system itself — the institutional innovation that Yōngzhèng inherited from his father and dramatically expanded. The fact that the rescripts were drafted by the emperor in person, without ministerial mediation, is precisely what the Sìkù tíyào draws attention to as the work’s distinguishing institutional novelty.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018 §65.3.7.