Wáng Duānyì zòuyì 王端毅奏議
Memorials of Wáng Duān-yì by 王恕 (撰)
About the work
A 15-juàn compilation of the official memorials of Wáng Shù 王恕 (1416–1508; Duānyì his posthumous title), the senior Míng Lǐbù shàngshū of the Hóngzhì period. The work has a complex editorial history — a 9-juàn Lǐbù zòuyì compiled by Sūn Jiāo 孫交 (then Wénxuǎnláng 文選郎) in Hóngzhì 4 (1491) with a preface by Lǐ Dōngyáng 李東陽; a 6-juàn selection of his pre-Lǐ-bù memorials cut by Bīngbù shàngshū Wáng Xiàn 王憲 and printed at Sūzhōu, with a separate Sānyuán printing by Yùshǐ Chéng Qǐyuán 程啓元; and the present 15-juàn combined recension printed in Zhèngdé xīnsì 正德辛巳 (1521) by Wáng Chéngzhāng 王成章, Zhī Sānyuán xiàn. The 15 juàn are arranged chronologically by office: juàn 1 Dàlǐsì and Jīngxiāng Hénán; juàn 2 Nánjīng boards and Hédào; juàn 3 Yúnnán; juàn 4 first-tenure Cānzàn jīwù; juàn 5 Nánzhí; juàn 6 second-tenure Cānzàn jīwù; juàn 7–15 Lǐbù.
Tiyao
Wáng Duānyì gōng zòuyì, 15 juàn, by Wáng Shù of the Míng. Shù has Shíqú yìjiàn (= KR1d0124) elsewhere recorded. — Shù’s Lǐbù zòuyì in 9 juàn was edited in Hóngzhì 4 (1491) by Wénxuǎnláng Sūn Jiāo, with a preface by Lǐ Dōngyáng. Later Bīngbù shàngshū Wáng Xiàn took Shù’s memorials from his Dàlǐsì zuǒsìfù tenure through to his Nánjīng bīngbù shàngshū tenure — 6 juàn — and had them printed at Sūzhōu; Yùshǐ Chéng Qǐyuán reprinted them at Sānyuán. The present version is the 1521 combined recension by Sānyuánxiàn magistrate Wáng Chéngzhāng. Juàn 1: from Dàlǐsì and Xúnfǔ Jīngxiāng Hénán. Juàn 2: from Nánjīng xíngbù, Hùbù, and Zǒnglǐ Hédào. Juàn 3: from Xúnfǔ Yúnnán. Juàn 4: from his earlier Cānzàn jīwù. Juàn 5: from his Xúnfǔ Nánzhí. Juàn 6: from his later Cānzàn jīwù. Juàn 7 to 15: all from his Lǐbù. Liú Chāng’s 劉昌 Xuánsì suǒtàn records that Shù served forty-five years and submitted more than three thousand memorials — so this is what he himself culled and preserved. — The Míng shǐ Wáng Shù biography says he served at court and provinces for over fifty years, his firm uprightness and clear severity consistent throughout. The contents of this collection — such as his impeachments of the garrison eunuchs (zhènshǒu tàijiàn) and his memorials on disturbances by court eunuchs — are direct and unwavering in their statement, without hedging. Other items, on regional management and ship dispatch, are detailed and statesmanlike. Many others bear on contemporary politics and may be cross-checked against historical biographies. — Shěn Défú’s Gùqǔ záyán records that Qiū Jùn wrote a Wǔlún quánbèi drama, and Wáng Shù said that as a chéngxué dàrú (Chéng-school Confucian scholar) Qiū should not give attention to dramatic verse — Qiū took great offence; Qiū then said Wáng’s published memorials, including all the Chénghuà period palace-suppressed memorials, made manifest the previous emperor’s failure to accept remonstrance; the court physician Liú Wéntài took up this matter and impeached Wáng, who lost his position — Qiū’s revenge for Wáng’s slight. The Míng shǐ Shù biography however says the two quarreled over seating arrangement and so were embroiled. — In any case, Qiū was indeed a vindictive man, and so long as Wáng remained, his private goals were thwarted; his hostility was not reducible to those few words or that one matter. Yet Wáng too rather lacked the bìrén féncǎo (avoiding-others, burning-the-draft) sense of restraint, hence the Shǐ says he was “ignorant of the warning to keep one’s reputation in old age.” The current printed edition has dropped these two characters — perhaps later cut. — Reverently presented in the fifth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). Chief Editors: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Wáng Duānyì zòuyì is a principal documentary monument of late-fifteenth-century Míng administration, particularly for: the Jīngxiāng refugee-management problem of the Tiānshùn and Chénghuà periods (the great JīngxiāngHénán liúmín uprisings); the Chénghuà Hédào (Yellow River) reorganization; the Chénghuà and Hóngzhì impeachments of garrison eunuchs; and the Hóngzhì personnel reform out of Lǐbù (the largest single block of his memorials, juàn 7–15). The Sìkù editors’ detailed account of the editorial history — three earlier partial recensions before the 1521 consolidated text — is one of the most thorough such notices in the catalog. The WángQiū Jùn 邱濬 dispute, which the editors discuss at length, is a key episode in the late-Chénghuà / early-Hóngzhì court politics.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chao-ying Fang (eds.), Dictionary of Ming Biography (1976) — entry on Wang Shu.
- Lǐ Lóng-qián 李龍潛, Míng dài Wáng Shù yánjiū 明代王恕研究 (Sān-yuán, 1995).
- Wilkinson 2018 §65.3.7.
Other points of interest
Several of Wáng’s memorials in this collection — particularly the Chénghuà period liúzhōng memorials never replied to during Chénghuà’s lifetime — give a vivid picture of the Chénghuà court’s pathological pattern of suppressing inconvenient memorials. The Sìkù editors note that the standard Míng liúzhōng convention (memorials retained in the palace, neither answered nor returned) was used as an instrument of policy by Wāng Zhí’s 汪直 and Liáng Fāng’s 梁芳 court coalitions to bypass remonstrance.
Links
- Wikidata: Wang Shu
- Wilkinson 2018 §65.3.7.