Xīshǐ jì 西使記
Record of a Mission to the West by 劉郁 (撰)
About the work
A short single-juàn travel record by Liú Yù 劉郁 (a Zhēndìng 真定 man, fl. 1259–1263) preserving the principal eyewitness Chinese-language account of the campaign of Hülegü (蒙哥之弟旭烈兀, Mongol Xílègǔ 錫里庫 in the Qīng-period transcription used in the WYG edition) against the Ismaili Assassins, the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, and other “westernmost” Islamic polities, c. 1252–1260. The account is framed as the report of Cháng Dé 常徳 (i.e. Liú Chángdé 劉常徳, no relation to the compiler), a Sìchuān observer dispatched in early 1259 to Hülegü’s army with the new Khan Möngke’s regards. Cháng Dé set out in Qiányuán 1 jǐwèi 己未 正月 (early 1259) and returned the following year. Liú Yù compiled and edited the resulting itinerary-with-observations into the present Xīshǐ jì. Wáng Yún 王惲 (1227–1304) had earlier incorporated the same text into his Yùtáng zájì 玉堂雜記; the present recension is a separately-circulating version.
The work is, with Yēlǜ Chǔcái’s 耶律楚材 Xīyóu lù 西遊錄 (1228) and Lǐ Zhìcháng’s 李志常 Chángchūn zhēnrén xīyóu jì 長春真人西遊記 (KR5c0028, 1228), one of the three principal Sino-Mongol travel-records of the thirteenth-century Mongol western expansion — and uniquely among them, it covers the Xīyù 西域 (Western Regions) at the Caliphal-eclipse moment of 1258 (the sack of Baghdad). It records polities and peoples (the Mùzúyí 木族夷, Mùbājíyí 木八剌夷, Bādá 八達 = Baghdad, Tiānfáng 天房 = Mecca / the Hejaz, Bāoyīn 報恩, Yìngjìfǔ 應吉福, Bùsī 不思 = Tabriz / Bukhara, etc.), itineraries, products, peoples, and political-military events. It is the principal Chinese-language source for the fall of Baghdad, the Mongol-Ismaili campaign in the Lèfùjué 樂富厥 / Quhistan, and the Eurasian end-points of the Mongol Yīlì hànguó (Ilkhanate).
Tiyao
Xīshǐ jì in 1 juàn, by Liú Yù of the Yuán. Yù was a Zhēndìng man. This book records Cháng Dé’s westward mission to the army of Huángdì’s younger brother Xílègǔ — the things seen on the road there and back. Wáng Yún previously incorporated it into Yùtáng zájì; this is a separately-circulating recension. The Yuán shǐ Xiànzōng jì (in rénzǐ 2 = 1252) records: “qiū qiǎn Xílā zhēng Xīyù Sūdān zhū guó” — that autumn dispatched Xílā against the Sultans of the West; that year Xílā died. Sānnián guǐchǒu (1253), in the sixth month, the various princes Xílègǔ and Wūlán Hādá led troops against Fǎlègā (= Fárs?), Bāhātái (= ?), etc., the western nations. Bānián wùwǔ (1258), Xílègǔ attacked the Huíhuí Fǎlègā, pacified them, captured their king, and sent envoys with reports of victory. Examination of the Shìxìbiǎo shows: Ruìzōng (拖雷) had eleven sons; the sixth was Xílègǔ; among the various princes there is no separate Xílā. The Guō Kǎn 郭侃 biography says: in rénzǐ (1252) he followed Xílègǔ on the western campaign — which agrees with this jì’s notice that “in rénzǐ the Imperial Brother Xílā commanded the various armies on imperial command for a western campaign that lasted six years and pushed the frontiers nearly ten thousand lǐ”. Therefore Xílā and Xílègǔ are the same person; because the Yuán shǐ was compiled by Míng-period scholars, the transcription is corrupt — one source rendering as Xílā, another as Xílègǔ — and a single individual was wrongly split into two persons. Hence the Xiànzōng jì in year 2 records “Xílā died” but in year 3 records “Xílègǔ on western campaign” — a perpetuation of the error. This jì says Cháng Dé’s western mission was in the first month of jǐwèi (1259); this is the year after Xílègǔ sent his report of victory. As to the records: although based only on what was seen and heard, and unable to verify ancient sites, they nevertheless provide some unusual information; the Guō Kǎn biography in many respects matches this account, the difference being only in the transcriptions. Our August Sovereign with martial spirit has pacified the Western Regions; the Kūnlún and Yuèzhī are now all on the imperial map; Cháng Dé’s journey now lies entirely within imperial military and post stations. The Xīyù túzhì has been imperially-sanctioned and will inform a thousand generations. What Yù records is in itself not noteworthy; nevertheless on the basis of his account we can verify dàolǐ (distances) and confirm the gǔjīn zhī yìtóng (ancient-modern continuities and changes); thus we have included it in this catalog. Reverently presented in the ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (= 1781). Chief Editors: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Xīshǐ jì is the most important Chinese-language source on the Mongol western expansion of 1252–1260, and the principal Chinese eyewitness record of the Hülegü campaign that destroyed the Ismaili Nizari state in Alamut (1256), sacked the Caliphal capital Baghdad (1258), and pushed Mongol arms to the gates of Egypt (until the Mamluk victory at ʿAyn Jālūt in September 1260 ended the western advance). Its principal value is in (i) preserving an unique itinerary of Cháng Dé’s 1259–1260 mission from Mongolia to Hülegü’s headquarters and back — a route covering western Central Asia, Khurasan, Persia, and the southern Caucasus; (ii) recording the principal nations and peoples encountered with their products and customs (the Mùzúyí / Mùbājíyí = the Ismailis; Bādá = Baghdad; Bùsī = perhaps Tabriz or Bukhara depending on reading; Tiānfáng = the Hejaz / Mecca); (iii) corroborating but in places diverging from the parallel passages in the Guō Kǎn biography of the Yuán shǐ. As Liú Yù’s transcriptions of West Asian ethnonyms and toponyms differ from those in the Yuán shǐ (which were rendered by Míng-period editors using their own conventions), the Xīshǐ jì is essential to the philological reconstruction of the original Mongol or Persian forms.
The composition window is firmly bracketed: Cháng Dé returned from his mission in 1260; the WYG Xīshǐ jì must be Liú Yù’s compilation of Cháng Dé’s account, presumably soon after Cháng Dé’s return — Wilkinson and the standard scholarly consensus place the work c. 1263. CBDB lists Liú Yù (id 28857) as fl. 1260. A defensible composition window is therefore 1263–1265.
The text was incorporated soon after composition into Wáng Yún’s Yùtáng zájì (Wáng was Han-lin academician and hence had access to court documents); the WYG recension is the separately-circulated version.
Translations and research
- Emil Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, vol. 1 (Trübner, 1888; reprinted Routledge 2002), pp. 109–156: complete annotated English translation, with extensive commentary identifying the toponyms and ethnonyms with West Asian / Persian originals. This remains the standard English-language reference.
- Buell, Paul D., “Some Aspects of the Mongol Military and Political Reorganization of Northern China and Eastern Central Asia, 1237–1278”, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1977. Treats the Xī-shǐ jì in the broader context of Mongol western expansion.
- Allsen, Thomas T., Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (CUP, 2001), draws on the Xī-shǐ jì alongside Wáng Yún and Persian sources.
- Yang, Bin, Cowrie Shells and Cowrie Money (Routledge, 2019), uses the Xī-shǐ jì among 13th-century Sino-Mongol sources for trade and cultural exchange with West Asia.
- The Sì-kù tíyào notice is in 史部·傳記類四·雜錄之屬.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ textual-critical observation is independently valuable: that the Ming-period Yuán shǐ compilers split a single Mongol prince (Hülegü = Xílègǔ / Xílā) into two distinct persons because of inconsistent transcription. The Xīshǐ jì’s preservation of Liú Yù’s earlier (Yuán-period) transcription enables the modern reading. The same passage’s reference to Guō Kǎn — the famous Hàn-Chinese commander serving under Hülegü in the western campaign, whose biography is in Yuán shǐ j.149 — confirms the network of Hàn-Chinese auxiliaries on whom the Mongol western expedition depended for siege engineering. The Hülegü/Cháng Dé itinerary reaches as far as Tiānfáng (the Hejaz / Mecca), making this the earliest detailed Chinese-language reference to the Islamic holy cities since the Táng-period Jīngxíng jì of Dù Huán 杜環.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §64.3.3.2 (Yuán travel records).
- Bretschneider 1888 / 2002, vol. 1, pp. 109–156 (translation).
- CBDB person id 28857 (Liú Yù 劉郁, fl. before 1260).