十六國春秋

Shíliùguó Chūnqiū 十六國春秋

Spring and Autumn Annals of the Sixteen Kingdoms (received Míng recompilation) attributed to 崔鴻 — actually the Míng recompilation of 屠喬孫 and 項琳

About the work

The Shíliùguó Chūnqiū, in 100 juàn as transmitted in the Sìkù quánshū, is the most important historical record of the Sixteen Kingdoms (304–439) — the more than twenty mainly short-lived dynasties that ruled North China, Héxī, Sìchuān, and Gānsù during the chaotic century after the fall of Western Jìn. The original work in 102 juàn was compiled by the Northern-Wèi historian 崔鴻 Cuī Hóng (478–525) and is recorded in the Suízhì and the Tángzhì; it was excerpted at length in Northern-Sòng lèishū (Lǐ Fǎng’s Tàipíng yùlǎn alone preserves several hundred passages), but was lost after the Northern Sòng. The 100-juàn book transmitted under Cuī Hóng’s name is in fact a late-Míng recompilation by 屠喬孫 (Tú Qiáosūn) and 項琳 (Xiàng Lín) of Jiāxīng 嘉興, made in the Wànlì 萬曆 era (c. 1573–1620), pieced together from the Jìnshū Zǎijì chapters and from TángSòng lèishū citations of the lost Cuī Hóng original. It is therefore a useful but secondary text — what survives of Cuī Hóng’s actual prose is preserved primarily through TángSòng quotation, not through Tú/Xiàng’s reconstruction.

Tiyao

By imperial mandate, your servants etc. respectfully report. The Shíliùguó Chūnqiū in 100 juàn carries the old attribution to Cuī Hóng of the (Northern) Wèi, but it is in truth the forged book of Tú Qiáosūn and Xiàng Lín of Jiāxīng under the Míng. Cuī Hóng’s Shíliùguó Chūnqiū in 102 juàn is recorded in the Wèishū běnzhuàn, in the Suízhì and the Tángzhì. Lǐ Fǎng’s 李昉 et al. Tàipíng yùlǎn of the early Sòng still cites it freely; the Sòng Yìwén zhì no longer registers its title; the Southern-Sòng catalogues likewise do not list it. It was lost in the Northern Sòng. In the Míng, Hé Táng’s 何鏜 HànWèi cóngshū prints a “Cuī Hóng Shíliùguó Chūnqiū” of 16 piān, one for each kingdom, of meager length and not matching the dimensions reported in the standard histories. The world had long suspected this version forged. In the Wànlì era and after, the present 100-juàn book suddenly appeared, no one knowing its source. Comparison with the Yìwén lèijù and other TángSòng quotations reveals exact verbal correspondence — and on this basis the new text was accepted into circulation. Some have raised the question why Cuī Hóng, an official of the Northern Wèi, employed Jìn / Sòng reign-names. Liú Zhījī’s 劉知幾 Shǐtōng (chap. Tànzé) addresses this point: “Hóng’s book takes the Jìn as its master, in the manner of Bān Gù keeping the Hàn calendar across Wú and Xiàng Yǔ, or of Chén Shòu’s history of the Three Kingdoms taking Wèi as its master.” Tú Qiáosūn and his collaborators have here simply taken over the principle that protected the original from the appearance of disloyalty. What the critics raise against the Wèishū notice that “Hóng’s son Zǐyuán 子元 reported that the book has zàn and xù for Yuè, Yān, Qín, Xià, Liáng, and Shǔ” — the present text has neither zàn nor xù. The Shǐtōng (chap. Biǎolì): “the Jìnshì spread south to take YángYuè; the Wèi prospered to dominate YānDài. In their midst the false dynasties were sixteen in number, refusing the legitimate calendar, declaring themselves rulers; Cuī Hóng wrote biǎo (chronological tables) for them, of refined judgment” — and the present book has no biǎo. These oversights show the lapses of the forgers’ editorial care. Yet the body of text is patched together from old books, not invented from whole cloth. For research on the Sixteen Kingdoms, the present compilation remains an indispensable assembly.

Abstract

The original Shíliùguó Chūnqiū in 102 juàn was the work of 崔鴻 Cuī Hóng (478–525), a senior Northern-Wèi zhōngshū shìláng 中書侍郎 of the Sòngshū / Wèishū generation, whose biography is in Wèishū 67. He compiled it from the dynastic histories of the sixteen kingdoms (the HànZhào, HòuZhào, QiánYān, etc., almost all of which are now lost) and from his own research. Cuī Hóng made the unusual choice — in a court of the rival Northern Wèi — of dating events by Jìn / Sòng reign-names, which Liú Zhījī defended in the Shǐtōng on the analogy of Bān Gù’s treatment of Wú and Xiàng Yǔ. His son Cuī Zǐyuán 崔子元 presented the book to the Northern-Wèi court after Cuī Hóng’s death, and it was officially deposited at the imperial library. The book was preserved through the Táng and Northern Sòng — the Tàipíng yùlǎn alone cites it 480 times — and is the principal source behind the Jìnshū Zǎijì 載記 chapters compiled in 644 under Fáng Xuánlíng. It was lost in the early Southern Sòng. What now circulates as Cuī Hóng’s Shíliùguó Chūnqiū in 100 juàn is a late-Míng (c. 1573–1620, Wànlì) recompilation by 屠喬孫 Tú Qiáosūn and 項琳 Xiàng Lín of Jiāxīng, drawing on the Jìnshū Zǎijì, Tàipíng yùlǎn, Yìwén lèijù, Chūxué jì, and other TángSòng lèishū. The dating in the frontmatter — notBefore 1573, notAfter 1620 — reflects the date of this received Míng recompilation, not Cuī Hóng’s original (which would be early 6th c.). The Sìkù editors flag the work as a Míng recompilation but accept it for transmission, as they note that “the body of text is patched together from old books, not invented from whole cloth.” A separate, smaller Shíliùguó Chūnqiū in 16 juàn — the Biéběn 別本 transmitted in Hé Táng’s HànWèi cóngshū — is treated separately at KR2i0006. Modern scholarship has produced a critical reconstruction of the original Cuī Hóng text by Tāng Qiú 湯球 (1804–81) — Shíliùguó Chūnqiū jíbǔ 十六國春秋輯補 — drawing systematically on the Jìnshū Zǎijì and on TángSòng lèishū citations.

Translations and research

• Tāng Qiú 湯球 (Qīng). Shíliù-guó Chūnqiū jí-bǔ 十六國春秋輯補. Reprint Qí-Lǔ shū-shè, 2000 (no. 11 in the Èrshí-wǔ bié-shǐ 二十五別史 series). The standard scholarly recovery of Cuī Hóng’s original.
• Chén Cháng-qí 陳長琦 and Zhōu Qún 周群. 2005. “Shíliù-guó Chūnqiū sǎn-yì kǎo-lüè” 十六國春秋散佚考略. Xué-shù yán-jiū 學術研究 7: 95–100. — On the loss of the original.
• Honey, David B. “Shiliuguo chunqiu 十六國春秋”. In Albert E. Dien et al., Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (EMCT), 2015.
• Schreiber, Gerhard. 1949–55. “The history of the Former Yen dynasty.” Monumenta Serica 14, 15: a substantial study of one of the Sixteen Kingdoms drawing on the Shíliù-guó Chūnqiū.
• The Jìn-shū Zǎi-jì (juàn 101–130 of the Jìn-shū) is, in effect, an early-Táng abridgment of Cuī Hóng’s original and remains the primary historical source for the Sixteen Kingdoms.
• No complete English translation of the Tú/Xiàng recompilation has been published.

Other points of interest

The 100-juàn Tú/Xiàng recompilation was itself partly an act of scholarly reaction: the editors regarded the existing 16-juàn HéTáng edition (= KR2i0006) as fragmentary and aimed to reconstruct what Cuī Hóng’s original would have looked like. The forgery is therefore better described as a learned reconstruction — and the Sìkù editors, while exposing it as a recompilation, accept its scholarly utility.

Links

• Wikipedia (Chinese)
• Wikidata: Q1133345
• Sìkù tíyào (Kyoto Zinbun)
• ctext.org