Zhūgě zhōngwǔ shū 諸葛忠武書
The Book of [Zhū-gě] Zhōng-wǔ by 楊時偉 (編)
About the work
A ten-juàn topical compilation on the life, statecraft, and military campaigns of Zhūgě Liàng 諸葛亮 (181–234), Shǔ Hàn 蜀漢 chancellor and the prototypical “loyal-and-martial” minister of the Sānguó tradition (posthumous title Zhōngwǔhóu 忠武侯, hence the title), prepared by Yáng Shíwěi 楊時偉 of the late Míng. The ten juàn are: (1) Niánpǔ 年譜 (year-by-year chronology); (2) Zhuànlüè 傳略 (biography); (3) ShàoHàn 紹漢 (continuing the Hàn legitimate succession); (4) LiánWú 連吳 (Wú alliance); (5) Nánzhēng 南征 (southern campaigns); (6) Běifá 北伐 (northern campaigns); (7) Tiáoyù 調御 (managing his subordinates); (8) Fǎjiǎn 法檢 (legal-administrative procedures); (9) Yíshì 遺事 (anecdotes); (10) Záshù 雜述 (miscellaneous). An appendix provides the table of contents of Wáng Jiǒngbó’s 王冏伯 Wǔhóu quánshū 武侯全書 in 16 juàn and Chén Shòu’s 陳壽 lost Zhūgě shì jí 諸葛氏集 in 24 piān — both used as scaffolding for Yáng’s compilation. Wáng Jiǒngbó’s 16 juàn are: Dǐnglì, Jìtǒng, LiánWú, Nánzhēng, Běifá, Yímìng, Tiáoyù, Fǎjiǎn, Yòngrén, Shìxì, Yìtóng, Yíshì, Bāzhèn, Gāngmù, Pínglùn, Bēimíng; plus a Jìyán 紀言 in 3 juàn. The text accordingly belongs to the family of late-Míng commemorative zhuànjì on a single great minister, building on a HànSòng tradition of Zhūgě Liàng worship.
Tiyao
Zhūgě zhōngwǔ shū in ten juàn, by Yáng Shíwěi of the Míng. (The detailed enumeration of contents follows the table of contents reproduced in the front matter; see “About the work.“) The book draws extensively on Wáng Jiǒngbó’s earlier Wǔhóu quánshū — Yáng remarks of his predecessor: “this book of Jiǒngbó’s is genuinely an original creation. Looking at his lateral gathering and verification of doubts, it deserves to be called a meritorious service to earlier worthies and a great benefit to later students. Although jumbled and uncollated, his clear discernment and broad mind ought to be immortal — and we therefore record his chapter-titles and hope that lovers of learning who think deeply will turn over the pages with us.” The work also gives the table of contents of Chén Shòu’s lost Zhūgě shì jí in 24 piān (= 104,112 characters total): Kāifǔ zuò mù; Quánzhì; Nánzhēng; Běichū; Jìsuàn; Xùnlì; Zōnghé shàng/xià; Záyán shàng/xià; Guìhé; Bīngyào; Zhuànyùn; Yǔ Sūn Quán shū; Yǔ Zhūgě Jǐn shū; Yǔ Mèng Dá shū; Fèi Lǐ Píng; Fǎjiǎn shàng/xià; Kēlìng shàng/xià; Jūnlìng shàng/zhōng/xià. As Yáng remarks, although Chén Shòu’s collection itself is lost, the survival of the chapter-titles makes possible the rejection of all later forgeries that have been ascribed to Zhūgě.
(The full WYG Sìkù tiyao runs to several pages and is reproduced in the source file. The condensed account here covers the substance.)
Abstract
Yáng Shíwěi (no precise lifedates; CBDB has no record; flourished in the late Wànlì–Tiānqǐ period, c. 1600–1625) is one of a constellation of Sūzhōu and Sōngjiāng late-Míng Sānguó enthusiasts who built on Wáng Jiǒngbó’s Wǔhóu quánshū (preface 1568) to systematize the Zhūgě commemorative tradition. The book belongs in the late-Míng zhuànjì genre established by Yuè Kē’s Jīntuó cuìbiān (KR2g0010) — a single-minister documentary anthology with topical rather than annalistic structure. Its preservation of the chapter-titles of Chén Shòu’s lost Zhūgě shì jí is independently of value to the philological reconstruction of Chén Shòu’s editorial work. The work is part of the wider late-Míng intellectual context that produced the popular novel Sānguó yǎnyì and is one of the principal late-Míng learned counterparts to that popular Sānguó tradition. Date bracket here is conservatively given as 1610–1620 on internal evidence.
Translations and research
- The various Sòng-Míng Zhū-gě Liàng commemorative compilations are surveyed in Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, “One Significant Rise of Chu-ko Liang’s Popularity: An Impact of the 1127 Jurchen Conquest,” Hànxué yán-jiū 14 (1996), 1–34, and his subsequent studies.
- See also Tian Yuan Tan, “Reading the Three Kingdoms in Late Ming Drama” (2010), and Andrew West, Quest for the Urtext: The Textual Archaeology of “The Three Kingdoms” (Princeton, 1993).
- The standard catalog notice is in Sì-kù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 史部·傳記類二·名人之屬.
Other points of interest
The book is essentially the Míng-period scholar’s response to the popularization of the Zhūgě figure in the Sānguó novel tradition: by gathering documentary, biographical, and administrative materials topically, it sets the huàběn tradition against the zhèngshǐ documentary record, arguing implicitly for the historical Zhūgě Liàng against the romance.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.