Shāng Wényì shūgǎo 商文毅疏稿
Draft Memorials of Shāng Wén-yì by 商輅 (撰)
About the work
A 1-juàn recovered collection of 33 memorials by Shāng Lù 商輅 (1414–1486), the only completed Míng sānyuán 三元 zhuàngyuán and senior Grand Secretary of the Chénghuà period. The collection was edited by his son Shāng Liáng 商良 (a shìjiǎng); his grandson Shāng Rǔyí 商汝頤 added a colophon recording that Shāng’s full Sùān wénjí 素菴文集 in many juàn had been burned twice and that “fortunately this volume alone survives, hence I had it carved.” The transmission text used by the Sìkù editors was a manuscript copy from the famous Tiānyīgé 天一閣 library — the printed version itself by then having been lost.
Tiyao
Shāng Wényì shūgǎo, 1 juàn, by Shāng Lù of the Míng. Lù has Xù tōngjiàn gāngmù (= KR2a0011) elsewhere recorded. This collection is what his son the shìjiǎng Liáng compiled. After it is the colophon by his grandson Rǔyí, stating: “Lù’s Sùān wénjí in many tens of juàn twice met disaster by fire and were entirely reduced to ashes; fortunately this one volume alone survived; I therefore had it cut into woodblocks.” The present text is a Tiānyīgé manuscript copy — the woodblocks too are now lost. Its survival is fortunate. — Listed are 33 memorials. The Míng shǐ records his memorials of the Jǐngtài period: the request to clear up the frontier military-fields, the call-back of the displaced people of Kāifēng and Fèngyáng. From the Chénghuà period: the opening Eight Matters memorial; the refutation of the slander against Lín Chéng; the request that the heir-apparent visit Empress Jì in her illness; the eight calamity-aversion measures; the impeachment of the Western Depot eunuch Wāng Zhí — these are all in this collection. Only the impeachment of Wāng Zhí: the Míng shǐ records that Shāng listed eleven offenses without naming them; the present collection lists only ten — perhaps in transmission one was dropped, or the Shǐ added one in error. — Also one biānwù (frontier-affairs) memorial: it discusses two matters. The first: nothing better than military farms (túntián) for nourishing troops; if there is no túntián, even emptying the public treasury and exhausting the people’s labour cannot make the frontier cities sufficient; we should restrict powerful and wealthy encroachment, divide the frontier troops into two shifts for cultivation. This is not solely about clearing official fields — the Shǐ simply says “investigated and returned” of the troop-fields, not the full meaning. The second: defending the frontier is best, defending the passes second, defending the capital is the worst — we should not entirely deploy the elite Bǎodìng troops to the capital and entrust the strategic passes (Zǐjīng, Dǎomǎ etc.) to rotated capital-troops, who would collapse on first contact. His words go to the heart of the dynastic ill — the Shǐ abridged and did not record this; the present collection has the full text — particularly useful in supplementing the History. — Reverently presented in the tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief Editors: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Shāng Wényì shūgǎo is a late-recovered fragment of the lost Sùān wénjí and is the principal documentary monument of the moderate-reformist faction of the early-Chénghuà Grand Secretariat. Its 33 memorials cover: the tǔmù-aftermath frontier reform (the túntián memorial of c. 1450); the post-restoration reorganization; the Chénghuà-period eight calamity-aversion measures; the imperial-empress (Empress Jì 紀, mother of the future Hóngzhì emperor) intervention; and the foundational anti-Wāng Zhí impeachment of 1477. The Sìkù editors’ detailed comparison with the Míng shǐ — particularly noting two divergences — exemplifies the Sìkù’s editorial standard for zòuyì texts. The work’s interest is twofold: as one of the very few recovered Míng grand-secretary memorial-anthologies (most being lost in the late-Míng / Qīng-conquest fires), and as a corrective to the Míng shǐ abridgement on key issues (the Bǎodìng troops disposition; the túntián enforcement scope).
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chao-ying Fang (eds.), Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644 (Columbia UP, 1976) — entry on Shang Lo (商輅).
- Wilkinson 2018 §65.3.7.
Other points of interest
The transmission account — twice burned, one volume surviving by chance, woodblock-printed by the grandson, that printing also lost, surviving only as a Tiānyīgé manuscript copy — is one of the more vivid stories of textual rescue in the Sìkù tíyào.
Links
- Wikidata: Shang Lu
- Wilkinson 2018 §65.3.7.