Zhāozhōng lù 昭忠錄
Record of the Manifestly Loyal edited anonymously (闕名)
About the work
A one-juàn anonymous record of 130 Southern-Sòng martyrs and zhōngjié 忠節 figures who died in the SòngYuán transition, from Shàodìng xīnmǎo (1231) — when the Mongol forces took the Mǎlǐngbǎo 馬嶺堡 and Tián Suì 田璲 et al. died in defence — down to the dynasty’s fall and the deaths of Lù Xiùfū 陸秀夫, Wén Tiānxiáng 文天祥, Xiè Fāngdé 謝枋得, and the rest. The catalog meta gives the dynasty as Yuán — the work was compiled by a Sòng yímín 遺民 (loyalist refugee) living under early Yuán rule, and the Sìkù editors note that it was probably never deposited in the Yuán imperial historical archives, so the Sòngshǐ (Yuán-period) compilers did not see it. Each entry gives the man’s name, official title, and the circumstances of his death; the format is uniform throughout. The Sìkù editors’ careful comparison with the Sòngshǐ Zhōngyì zhuàn documents many discrepancies — the Zhāozhōng lù preserves the correct names and circumstances in cases where the Sòngshǐ fails (Yáng Ruì 楊銳 of West Hézhōu mistakenly called Wáng Ruì 王銳 in the Shǐ; Lín Tóng’s 林同 hào Kōngzhāi 空齋 mistakenly taken in the Shǐ for a separate person; Liú Tóngzǐ 劉仝子 mistakenly called Liú Tóngzǔ 劉仝祖 in the Shǐ; the Shǐ failing to record Liú Tóngzǐ’s capture, his suicide, and his wife’s martyrdom). The accounts of Zhāng Shìjié’s 張世傑 last stand at Yáshān 崖山 and Xiè Fāngdé’s resistance to summons under the Yuán are fuller here than in any received source.
Tiyao
Zhāozhōng lù in one juàn, no compiler’s name. It records the loyalty-and-righteousness affairs of the late Southern Sòng, hence the title Zhāozhōng — running from Shàodìng xīnmǎo (1231), when the Mongol forces broke Mǎlǐngbǎo and Zǒngguǎn Tián Suì and others died in defence, down to the dynasty’s fall and the martyrdoms of Lù Xiùfū, Wén Tiānxiáng, and Xiè Fāngdé — 130 men in total. By the diction one infers it was made by a Sòng yímín who entered the Yuán. Each entry first gives the man’s name and office, then the facts of his death. The prose is sometimes detailed, sometimes brief, but on the whole accurate and verifiable. Comparing it with the Sòngshǐ Zhōngyì zhuàn, much of what the Shǐ fails to record is here; even of those the Shǐ does have, many points are at variance. For instance: Chén Yín 陳寅 of West Hézhōu, who died in Shàodìng xīnmǎo, has a Sòngshǐ biography, but Yáng Ruì who died with him as defending general is not in the Shǐ; the Shǐ furthermore mistakes his surname as Wáng Ruì. The Sòngshǐ Lín Kōngzhāi biography treats Kōngzhāi as the son of Lín Tóng — examining this work, we find that Kōngzhāi is Lín Tóng’s hào. The Shǐ also wrongly gives Liú Tóngzǐ as Liú Tóngzǔ and fails to record his capture and self-strangulation, and his wife’s martyrdom too. In all these cases, the present book is more accurate. Again, on Zhāng Shìjié at Yáshān and on Xiè Fāngdé summoned under the Yuán, this book is fuller than other sources. We suspect that the work was preserved in Yuán-period popular records and never sent up to the historical office; in Zhìzhèng (1341–1370) when the Sòngshǐ compilers were at work, they had no way of seeing it, so the Sòngshǐ records remain wanting. This copy is a long-transmitted manuscript with occasional textual errors and lacunae but the substance is recoverable. We respectfully publish it: that the unstated yōuqián of an entire dynasty’s loyal ministers and righteous men may now be made visible to the world; and that readers of the Sòngshǐ may take this as a means of correcting the regular history’s omissions. Reverently presented in the fourth month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Chief Editors: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The Zhāozhōng lù is the principal anonymous early-Yuán yímín compilation of Sòng-Yuán-transition martyrs. It is a far better source for the late-Sòng resistance than the Sòngshǐ Zhōngyì zhuàn. The work was effectively suppressed under the Yuán (the Sìkù editors’ “preserved in popular records, never sent up to the historical office” diagnosis is correct: politically too sensitive to circulate openly under Yuán rule) and resurfaced only in late-Míng manuscript transmission. The compilation date is given as Yuán in the catalog meta; on internal evidence it was prepared shortly after the Sòng’s fall in 1279 (the latest entries — Lù Xiùfū at Yáshān 1279, Wén Tiānxiáng’s death 1283, Xiè Fāngdé’s death 1289 — establish the terminus a quo). Date bracket here 1280–1300. As a zhuànjì it preserves a vast amount of detail not in the Sòngshǐ and was a working source for late-Míng / early-Qīng Sòngyímín commemorative literature.
Translations and research
- Jennifer Jay-Preston, A Change in Dynasties: Loyalism in Thirteenth-Century China (Bellingham, WA: Western Washington UP, 1991).
- Frederick Mote, “Confucian Eremitism in the Yüan Period,” in Arthur F. Wright, ed., Confucianism in Action (Stanford UP, 1959).
- The work is a key source for Wáng Yáng-zǔ 王秉中, Sòng-mò sān jié 宋末三傑 (1937), and similar Chinese-language compilations.
- The Sì-kù tíyào notice is in 史部·傳記類三·總錄之屬.
Other points of interest
The textbook example of an early-Yuán yímín compilation that survived only in private circulation. The Sìkù editors explicitly invoke the work’s value as a corrective to the Sòngshǐ — a striking gesture of Qīng historiographical revisionism toward a text the Yuán court had effectively suppressed.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.