Zuǒshǐ jiàncǎo 左史諫草
Draft Memorials of the Left Historiographer by 呂午 (撰)
About the work
A small 1-juàn family-transmitted collection of six memorials by Lǚ Wǔ 呂午 (1179–1255), all dating from his service as Qǐjū láng 起居郎 (Imperial Diarist, the Zuǒshǐ 左史) under the Lǐzōng emperor in Jiāxī 嘉熙 2 (1238). The work also incorporates one memorial by Lǚ Wǔ’s son Lǚ Hàng 呂沆 and family-tradition (jiāzhuàn) materials including a liènǚ jiāzhuàn on a chaste woman of the Lǚ clan and biographical notes by the Yuán-period scholar Fāng Huí 方回 (1227–1307), a fellow Shèxiàn 歙縣 native.
Tiyao
Zuǒshǐ jiàncǎo, 1 juàn, by Lǚ Wǔ of the Sòng. Wǔ, zì Bókě, from Shèxiàn. Jiādìng 4 (1211) jìnshì; rose to Qǐjū láng and Yòuwéndiàn xiūzhuàn; Zhī Zhāngzhōu; his career is in his Sòng shǐ biography. — This collection consists of six memorials, with one further memorial by his son Hàng appended; further appended are family-record poetry-and-prose materials, and at the end the Lǚshì jiénǚ (Chaste Woman of the Lǚ Clan) account — all attached as a result of family-record compilation. — Wǔ served twice as jiànguān (remonstrance official); he encouraged himself by his own moral standard and “knowing nothing without speaking.” Lǐzōng once praised his discourse as “very clear and incisive,” and again said his arguments on frontier affairs were “very fine.” These six memorials are all submitted in Lǐzōng’s Jiāxī 2 (1238). Although the pieces are few, the late-Sòng court affairs are quite well documented. His discussion of the abuses of the Sòng prime ministers and the yùshǐ and jiànguān offices is especially detailed and earnest. The single piece by his son Hàng, and Fāng Huí 方回’s biographical notes for both Wǔ and Hàng, mostly cohere with the Sòng shǐ biographies and may serve to confirm them. Fāng Huí calls Wǔ’s collection Zhúpō lèigǎo — Wǔ originally had a complete collected works, now lost; these six memorials are what was preserved among the scattered remnants. His other surviving prose is rather scattered through the Xīnān wénxiàn zhì 新安文獻志 etc. — Reverently presented in the tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief Editors: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Zuǒshǐ jiàncǎo is a small but valuable witness to late-Sòng remonstrance practice. The six memorials, all from 1238, target: the abusive practices of the Lǐ-zōng-period prime ministers (Sòng zǎixiàng táijiàn zhī bì 宋宰相臺諫之弊 — the political pathology of the yùshǐ and jiànguān offices being captured by the prime ministers, his most-cited theme); frontier affairs in the build-up to the Mongol invasions; and corruption in the imperial-clan and military-supply offices. The work’s transmission as a family record (with appended materials including his son’s lone memorial and the chaste-woman record) is itself characteristic of late-Sòng / early-Yuán Huīzhōu local-elite documentary practice. The original Zhúpō lèigǎo in many juàn is lost.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation located. For the late-Sòng remonstrance system and the institutional pathology Lǚ Wǔ describes, see Charles Hartman, The Making of a Villain: Cài Jīng and Sòng Historiography (HJAS 1998); James T. C. Liu, China Turning Inward: Intellectual-Political Changes in the Early Twelfth Century (Harvard, 1988).
Other points of interest
The appended Lǚshì jiénǚ jiāzhuàn 呂氏節女家傳 — a family-record account of a chaste woman — illustrates the late-Sòng integration of clan-based moral-exemplar literature with official-memorial collections. The six memorials of 1238 are also the principal source for the political vocabulary “Sòng zǎixiàng táijiàn zhī bì” — the late-Sòng critique that the censorate had been corrupted by the prime ministers’ control.
Links
- Wikidata: Lü Wu — (no Wikidata entry located).
- Wilkinson 2018 §62.3.7.