鄴中記

Yèzhōng Jì 鄴中記

Records of Yè by 陸翽 (撰)

About the work

The Yèzhōng jì is a one-juàn miscellany on the city of Yè 鄴 — capital of the HòuZhào 後趙 dynasty under Shí Hǔ 石虎 (r. 334–349) and a major political-cultural center across the Sixteen Kingdoms and Northern Dynasties. The original Eastern-Jìn work by 陸翽 (Lù Huì, zì unknown), a Guózǐ zhùjiào 國子助教 of the Eastern Jìn, was in two juàn and primarily concerned the reign of Shí Hǔ. Lost in the Sòng, the present text is a Sìkù-editor reconstruction (c. 1773–1782) from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典, supplemented from Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚, Chūxué jì 初學記, Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽, and other TángSòng lèishū. The recovered text — 72 entries in one juàn, with an appendix (fùlù) of post-Lù material — is one of the principal sources for the architecture, court ceremonial, music, gardens, courtesans, food and material culture of HòuZhào Yè.

Tiyao

By imperial mandate, your servants etc. respectfully report. The Yèzhōng jì exists in two old recensions. One, in two juàn, is recorded in the Suízhì (Jīngjí zhì) and ascribed to Lù Huì 陸翽, Guózǐ zhùjiào of the Jìn. The other, in one juàn, is recorded in Chén Zhènsūn’s 陳振孫 Shūlù jiětí 書錄解題, where the author’s name is given as unknown; that entry adds that the Tángzhì lists a Yèdū gùshì 鄴都故事 in two juàn by Mǎ Wēn 馬温 of the Sùzōng / Dàizōng era (i.e. mid-late 8th c.), much cited in the present book — implying it is the work of a Sù-Dài-period writer. Yet the present book records two events under the Northern Qí 北齊 — those of Gāo Huān 高歡 and Gāo Yáng 高洋 — already 130–140 years past the end of the Eastern Jìn; further, one entry on Hánshí 寒食 (Cold Food festival) cites Dù Táiqīng’s 杜臺卿 Suí-period Yùzhú bǎodiǎn 玉燭寶典, separated from Lù Huì by even a wider gap. Chén Zhènsūn’s refusal to attribute the book to Lù Huì therefore seems sound. However, Ōuyáng Xún’s 歐陽詢 Yìwén lèijù (vol. Tàizōng Zhēnguān era) and Xú Jiān’s 徐堅 Chūxué jì (Xuánzōng Kāiyuán era) both quote Lù Huì’s Yèzhōng jì with passages exactly matching the present book; and the Yèdū gùshì, though the Tángzhì assigns it a SùDài date, is attested already in Liú Zhījī’s Shǐtōng (shūzhì 書志 chapter), which writes: “in remoter days the Hàn had its Sānfǔ diǎn, more recently the Suí its Dōngdū jì; in the south the Sòng had its Nán Xúzhōu jì and the Jìn gōngquè míng; in the north there is the Luòyáng qiélán jì and the Yèdū gùshì” — so the Yèdū gùshì in fact predates Liú Zhījī (i.e., predates the early 8th c.), and the Tángzhì attribution to Mǎ Wēn cannot stand. Reasoning from this, Lù Huì’s two-juàn book — which records only the deeds of Shí Hǔ — was in time supplemented from the Yèdū gùshì, the two combined into one juàn — much as the Shénnóng běncǎo lists Hàn place-names in a body of older formulas, and the Hàn Huángtú 黃圖 has lǐ names dating to the Táng. Successive accretion gradually obscures the original. The two passages on Gāo Huān and Gāo Yáng do not match the rest of the book in style and do match the Yèdū gùshì citations in Guō Màoqiàn’s 郭茂倩 Yuèfǔ shījí — they are clearly Táng additions to Lù Huì’s book. Such small discrepancies do not justify dating the whole book to post-Táng. The original work has long been lost; what Táo Zōngyí 陶宗儀 prints in his Shuōfú 說郛 is a few pages, and even those are incomplete. Here, gathering what is preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and cross-checking against other works, we have removed duplicates and arrived at 72 entries in one juàn. The Shí Hǔ material is treated as Lù Huì’s own; the supplementary entries — though they are pre-Táng — are placed at the end as an appendix. Modest in compass, the book is dense in verifiable detail. Wáng Wéi’s 王維 Hé Jiǎ Zhì zǎocháo Dàmínggōng — line cháo bà xū cái wǔsè zhào 朝罷須裁五色詔 — and Lǐ Qí’s 李頎 Zhèng Yīngtáo gē 鄭櫻桃歌 — guānjūn nǚqí yīqiān pǐ 官軍女騎一千匹 and bǎichǐ jīntī fǔ yínhàn 百尺金梯俯銀漢 — would be without commentary if the Yèzhōng jì did not survive. Six-Dynasties primary sources are vanishingly rare in our day; broken jade and shattered pearl have an even greater value. To recover what was lost is the rare achievement of secret learning.

Abstract

陸翽 Lù Huì served as Guózǐ zhùjiào 國子助教 (Auxiliary Instructor of the Directorate of Education) of the Eastern Jìn; nothing further of his career survives. The catalog meta date “4th cent.” is the standard estimation: his book, restricted in its core to the reign of Shí Hǔ (r. 334–349), was composed in the second half of the 4th century, after the fall of HòuZhào and after Yè had passed first to the Rǎn Wèi 冉魏 (350–352) and then to Mùróng Jùn 慕容儁’s Former Yān 前燕. The composition window of c. 350–420 (post-Hòu-Zhào, intra-Eastern-Jìn) is defensible. The original two-juàn work was lost in the Sòng — the Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目 already does not list it, and Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí notice describes only a one-juàn anonymous compilation already mixed with later material from the Yèdū gùshì. The Sìkù editors’ reconstruction of 72 entries from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn is the basis of the WYG text; the Shí-Hǔ-centered material is accepted as Lù Huì’s, with two demonstrably-anachronistic passages on Northern Qí (Gāo Huān, Gāo Yáng) flagged as accretions from the Yèdū gùshì. The Yèzhōng jì is by far the most detailed pre-Táng source on the architecture and court culture of HòuZhào Yè: the Tóngquè tái 銅雀臺, Bīngjǐng tái 冰井臺, and Jīnfèng tái 金鳳臺 are described, as are imperial ceremonial banquets, the women’s quarters of Shí Hǔ’s harem, and the prepared foods of the HòuZhào palace.

Translations and research

• Wén Tíng-shì 文廷式. Bǔ-jìn shū yì-wén-zhì 補晉書藝文志. Lists the Yè-zhōng jì and discusses Lù Huì’s career.
• Yáng Yǒu-lǐ 楊勇禮. 1995. “Yè-zhōng jì yán-jiū” 鄴中記研究. Hé-běi xué-kān 河北學刊 5.
• Hé Cì-jūn 何次君. 1980. Yè-zhōng jì jí-shì 鄴中記輯釋. Tianjin: Tiānjīn gǔjí.
• Discussions of the text appear in studies of Hòu-Zhào Yè, especially in the work on the Tóng-què tái complex and in Shíng Hsuan, Imperial Dynamics in the Yangtze and Yellow River Basins (forthcoming).
• No substantial English-language monograph located.

Other points of interest

The Yèzhōng jì is the unique surviving witness to several technical-historical points: it preserves the recipe and serving instructions for zhúzǐ 粽子 in HòuZhào (one of the earliest culinary attestations); it gives the dimensions and decoration of the Tóngquè tái’s liángfēngguǎn 涼風館; and it preserves the only contemporary Eastern-Jìn description of the HòuZhào women’s qíyì 騎衣 and jīntī 金梯 ceremonial costume, which Táng poets cite by allusion.

Links

• Wikipedia (Chinese)
• Wikidata: Q11116015
• Sìkù tíyào (Kyoto Zinbun)
• ctext.org