Tán Xiāngmǐn zòuyì 譚襄敏奏議
Memorials of Tán Xiāng-mǐn by 譚綸 (撰)
About the work
A 10-juàn compilation of military memorials by Tán Lún 譚綸 (1520–1577; Xiāngmǐn his posthumous title), one of the two great Míng military commanders of the late-sixteenth century. The work is divided into three regional sub-collections (each labelled gǎo 稿, “draft”): Mǐn gǎo 閩稿 — his Fújiàn governorship of Jiājìng 42 (1563) and following; Shǔ gǎo 蜀稿 — his Sìchuān governorship of Jiājìng 44 (1565) and following; JìLiáo gǎo 薊遼稿 — his JìLiáo zǒngdū (Three-Garrisons Commander) tenure of Lóngqìng 1–4 (1567–1570).
Tiyao
Tán Xiāngmǐn zòuyì, 10 juàn, by Tán Lún of the Míng. Lún, zì Zǐlǐ, from Yíhuáng, Jiājìng jiǎchén (1544) jìnshì, served to Bīngbù shàngshū, posthumous Xiāngmǐn; his career in his Míng shǐ biography. — This compilation is his memorials from his successive offices, in three sub-collections: Mǐn gǎo — what he submitted from Jiājìng 42 (1563), recalled as Yòu qiān dū yùshǐ xúnfǔ Fújiàn; Shǔ gǎo — what he submitted from Jiājìng 44 (1565), recalled as Shǎnxī xúnfǔ, when in fact transferred to Sìchuān after the Dàzú people’s revolt fell seven cities; JìLiáo gǎo — what he submitted from Lóngqìng 1 to 4 (1567–70), advanced from Bīngbù yòu shìláng to Zuǒ shìláng concurrent Yòu qiān dū yùshǐ zǒngdū JìLiáo Bǎodìng jūnwù. — The Shǐ says Lún was deep and resolute, knowing of war. As Tàizhōu zhīfǔ he and Qī Jìguāng established the shùwǔ fǎ and trained the troops who broke the wōkòu, capturing or killing them in nearly entirety. As Zhèjiāng hǎidào fùshǐ, again breaking them in succession. Recalled as Zhèjiāng yòu cānzhèng, breaking the Ráopíng bandit Lín Cháoxī. Transferred Fújiàn cānzhèng — the cities and counties largely fallen to the wōkòu — by hard fighting recovered the Mǐn (Fújiàn) territory. As Sìchuān xúnfǔ, eliminating the rebellious Yúnnán chieftain Fèng Jìzǔ at Huìlǐ. As LiǎngGuǎng zǒngdū, the Céngǎng bandit Jiāng Yuèzhào and others surrendered at his approach. The court relied on him for handling bandits — every alarm immediately his deployment. He held office without a slack year. In JìLiáo, he and Qī Jìguāng joined forces in border-handling; the Three Garrisons and the bù tribes did not dare to graze southward. From beginning to end his military operations spanned nearly thirty years; his shǒugōng (severed-heads accumulated) total was 21,500. His merit and reputation are not below Wáng Shǒurén’s; yet the Confucian community celebrates Wáng because Wáng gathered students and lectured, and his expounders were many. — We here record this collection to display the rough outline of his planning, that his substance may not be erased. — Reverently presented in the twelfth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief Editors: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Tán Xiāngmǐn zòuyì is the principal documentary monument of the late-Míng anti-piracy and anti-Mongol military reforms — co-evally with Qī Jìguāng 戚繼光’s Jìxiào xīnshū 紀效新書 (1560) and Liànbīng shíjì 練兵實紀 (1571), but written from the side of the strategic-administrative commander rather than the field officer. The three sub-collections record three distinct campaigns: the Fújiàn anti-piracy command (1563) that finally broke the wōkòu on the southeast coast, after which the wōkòu problem effectively ended; the Sìchuān suppression of the Dàzú minority uprising (1565); and the JìLiáo command (1567–70) that reformed the Three Garrisons defence against the Mongols and brought Qī Jìguāng to his most productive late-career command at Jìzhèn. The Sìkù editors’ notable rhetorical move — pairing Tán with Wáng Yángmíng on military merit while explicitly acknowledging that the Confucian community (rúzhě) inflated Wáng because of his philosophical school — is one of the more candid statements in the tíyào corpus about the gap between actual military achievement and posthumous canonical reputation.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chao-ying Fang (eds.), Dictionary of Ming Biography (1976) — entry on T’an Lun.
- Ray Huang, 1587, A Year of No Significance (Yale UP, 1981) — chapter on Qī Jì-guāng. Implicitly background for Tán Lún.
- Kenneth M. Swope, A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592–1598 (UOklP, 2009) — context for the late-sixteenth-century Míng military system Tán helped construct.
- Wilkinson 2018 §65.3.7.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ explicit critique of Confucian-community partisanship in the historiographical canonization of Wáng Yángmíng over Tán Lún is a notable piece of editorial candour. The implication — that disciples-and-school inflated Wáng’s reputation while Tán’s purely military merit was undercelebrated — is consistent with the eighteenth-century Sìkù editors’ guarded skepticism toward Lǐ-school and Yáng-míng-school philosophical lineages.
Links
- Wikidata: Tan Lun
- Wilkinson 2018 §65.3.7.