金佗稡編

Jīntuó cuìbiān 金佗稡編

The Jīn-tuó Anthology, Compiled and Continued by 岳珂 (撰)

About the work

The principal documentary record of the campaigns and posthumous rehabilitation of the Sòng general Yuè Fēi 岳飛 (1103–1142), compiled by his grandson Yuè Kē 岳珂 (1183 — c. 1240), the heir-historian of the Yuè family. The work is in two parts: the Cuìbiān 稡編 in 28 juàn, completed at Yuè Kē’s villa at Jīntuófāng 金佗坊 in Jiāxīng 嘉興 in Jiādìng wùyín 嘉定戊寅 (= Jiādìng 11, 1218), and the Xùbiān 續編 in 30 juàn, completed in Shàodìng wùzǐ 紹定戊子 (= Shàodìng 1, 1228). The combined 58 juàn are commonly cited together as Jīntuó cuìbiān (xùbiān). The catalog meta gives only 28 juàn — the Cuìbiān alone — but the WYG copy includes both parts. The Cuìbiān contains: (i) three juàn of imperial holographs (chénhàn 宸翰) by Gāozōng 高宗 to Yuè Fēi; (ii) six juàn of Èwáng xíngshí biānnián 鄂王行實編年 (annal-biography of Yuè Fēi as posthumously enfeoffed Èwáng 鄂王); (iii) ten juàn of Èwáng jiājí 鄂王家集 (Yuè Fēi’s literary remains); (iv) five juàn of Yùtiān biànwū 籲天辨誣 (point-by-point refutation of Qín Huì’s 秦檜 fabrications, citing such Sòng accounts as Xióng Kè’s 熊克 Zhōngxīng xiǎojì and Wáng Míngqīng’s 王明清 Huīchén lù); (v) three juàn of Tiāndìng lù 天定錄 (post-rehabilitation imperial decrees of restoration of office and posthumous canonization). The Xùbiān contains: (i) one juàn of Chénhàn zhāiyí 宸翰摭遺 (additional Gāozōng holographs); (ii) eleven juàn of Sīlún chuánxìn lù 絲綸傳信錄 (Yuè Fēi’s appointment edicts and ministerial papers); (iii) four juàn of Tiāndìng biélù 天定別錄 (rehabilitation papers for Yuè Fēi’s sons Yuè Yún 岳雲, Yuè Léi 岳雷, Yuè Lín 岳霖, Yuè Fǔ 岳甫, and Yuè Chēn 岳琛); (iv) fourteen juàn of Bǎishì zhāozhōng lù 百氏昭忠錄 (battle and administrative achievements drawn from the dynastic histories and from stelae and biographies by Sòng writers such as Liú Guāngzǔ 劉光祖 and Huáng Yuánzhèn 黃元振). It is the foundational documentary basis for all subsequent biographical scholarship on Yuè Fēi.

Tiyao

Jīntuó cuìbiān in twenty-eight juàn; Xùbiān in thirty juàn. By Yuè Kē of the Sòng. Kē has the Jiǔjīng sānzhuàn yángé lì 九經三傳沿革例 listed elsewhere. This compilation was made to clear up the wrongs done to his ancestor Yuè Fēi. Kē’s villa was at Jīntuófāng in Jiāxīng, and he therefore named the work after it. The Cuìbiān was completed in Jiādìng wùyín (1218); the Xùbiān was completed in Shàodìng wùzǐ (1228). [Detailed enumeration of the contents, identical to that summarized in §“About the work” above]. The Yùtiān biànwū records the deceit and false accusations of Qín Huì and his clique; on each affair Kē adduces a contemporary written account — Xióng Kè’s Zhōngxīng xiǎojì, Wáng Míngqīng’s Huīchén lù, and the like — and refutes the slander point by point. The Tiāndìng lù records the affairs of restoration of rank and bestowal of posthumous title after Yuè Fēi’s exoneration. [Continuation of the description.] In Kē’s own preface he writes: “How much the more in this autumn of grand schemes for restoration, when the Plan of Yúfù 魚復 and the Plot of Gǔchéng 穀城 surely cannot fail to find one or two men who may sit at the Court’s table — turning over what should be put in practice and verifying what may be tested — and not allow them, like the chúgǒu straw-dogs already discarded, to be cast aside” — clearly written after the defeat of Kāixǐ 開禧 (1206) but before the joint Duānpíng 端平 attack (1234), at a time when the political mood again favoured a forward strategy, and Kē therefore wrote thus. The book had become scattered over time. In the Zhìzhèng 23 (1363) of the Yuán it was re-cut at the Zhèjiāng xíngshěng by Chén Jī 陳基, who supplied a preface; Dài Zhū 戴洙 supplied an afterword in which he says he “sought far and wide for the surviving fragments and odd folios, collated them, and so brought the book back to its present form.” For this reason the book has occasional missing slips and lacunae throughout. The Míng Jiājìng re-cut preserves these as before; we have no way to fill the gaps and so reproduce the Jiājìng recension here. Reverently presented in the ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief Editors: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Yuè Kē (CBDB record 1183 — c. 1240; catalog meta gives “1173? – ca. 1240” but the standard sources prefer 1183 — the catalog’s “1173?” may be a misprint, and the question-mark is correctly retained: external evidence is thin) was the third son of Yuè Lín 岳霖 (a son of Yuè Fēi), and the principal Sòng champion of his ancestor’s rehabilitation. The Jīntuó cuìbiān and its Xùbiān together form a five-and-a-half-century-influential documentary archive of imperial holographs, official biography, family literary remains, point-by-point refutation of Qín Huì’s slanders, and the post-rehabilitation papers of Xiàozōng’s reign and after. The two-stage compilation in 1218 and 1228 corresponds to the wider Southern-Sòng strategic debate after the failure of Hán Tuōzhòu’s 韓侂冑 Kāixǐ northern campaign (1206) and before the abortive Sòng–Mongol joint attack on the Jīn at Duānpíng 1 (1234), when Yuè Fēi’s strategic vision was once again being invoked in defence of an interventionist policy. Yuè Fēi’s posthumous rehabilitation had begun under Xiàozōng (1162: rehabilitation; 1178: posthumous title Wǔmù 武穆; 1204: enfeoffment as Èwáng 鄂王) — the Jīntuó cuìbiān documents this entire trajectory. The text was substantially lost in the SòngYuán transition and was re-cut at Zhìzhèng 23 (1363) under the Yuán by Chén Jī 陳基; the Míng Jiājìng re-cut, which the Sìkù editors used, has surviving lacunae preserved unchanged. Yuè Fēi’s role as the ultimate Chinese symbol of resistance to the Jurchen owes its documentary anchor to this work.

Translations and research

• Hellmut Wilhelm, “From Myth to Myth: The Case of Yüeh Fei’s Biography,” in Confucian Personalities, ed. Wright and Twitchett (Stanford UP, 1962), 146–161 — classic English-language study of the politics of Yuè-Fēi commemoration, drawing on the Jīn-tuó cuì-biān.
• James T. C. Liu, “Yueh Fei (1103–41) and China’s Heritage of Loyalty,” Journal of Asian Studies 31 (1972), 291–297.
• Wáng Zēng-yù 王曾瑜, Yuè Fēi xīn-zhuàn 岳飛新傳 (Shanghai, 1983) and his collected studies — definitive modern Chinese biography, dependent on the Jīn-tuó cuì-biān.
• Modern critical edition: Wáng Zēng-yù 王曾瑜, ed., Jīn-tuó cuì-biān, Xù-biān jiào-zhù 金佗稡編、續編校注 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1989).

Other points of interest

The book is the textbook example of Sòng family-archive zhuànjì with rehabilitative purpose; its inclusion of imperial chénhàn (handwritten edicts), private literary remains, point-by-point refutations of contemporary partisan smears, and post-rehabilitation imperial documents established a template imitated through the Yuán and Míng (most directly in the Zhūgě zhōngwǔ shū KR2g0014 and other Míng compilations). The Bǎishì zhāozhōng lù in particular preserves Sòng stelae and biographies of Yuè Fēi otherwise lost.

Links

• Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.
• CBDB person id (Yuè Kē 岳珂); for the family archive see also Yuè Fēi’s own works.
• Wikidata: 岳珂