Diàojī Lìtán 釣磯立談
Standing Talks at the Fishing Crag by anonymous (the son of 史虛白 Shǐ Xūbái)
About the work
The Diàojī Lìtán is a one-juàn miscellany of ~220 entries on the personalities, statecraft, and final fall of the Southern Táng 南唐 (937–975). It survives in two recensions: the 葉林宗 Yè Línzōng manuscript (transcribed from a Sòng-period printing of the Línān 臨安 Tàimiàoqián Yǐnjiā shūjípù 太廟前尹家書籍鋪 — preserved in 錢曾 Qián Zēng’s library and adopted by the Sìkù editors), and a second recension printed by 曹寅 Cáo Yín under the misattribution to 史虛白 Shǐ Xūbái. The author is not Shǐ Xūbái himself but his son: the preface (“sǎnyú 叟 of Shāndōng, with my late father, the jiàoshū 校書, took refuge in Jiāngbiǎo 江表 in the Qīngtài 清泰 era…”) makes the filiation unambiguous. The book draws extensively on direct observation and family tradition, and is among the most reliable Sòng-period sources on the inner workings of the Southern Táng court — particularly on relations between the Northern-newcomer émigrés (韓熙載 Hán Xīzǎi, 史虛白, 孫晟) and the Southern Táng’s own Jiāngbiǎo élite.
Tiyao
The book exists in two recensions. The present recension was transcribed by Yè Línzōng from the Sòng manuscript in Qián Zēng’s library; it carries the colophon “Hángzhōu 臨安府 Tàimiàoqián Yǐnjiā shūjípù” — a known Línān (Hángzhōu) printing-shop. Anonymous; opens with a self-preface: “Your servant, an obscure man of Shāndōng, in the Qīngtài 清泰 era (934–937) took refuge in Jiāngbiǎo with my late father the jiàoshūláng 校書郎. We made a fishing-crag at Jiāngzhǔ 江渚. After the Sòng partition of the Yangtze (= Kāibǎo 開寶 7 / 974), my father did not live to see it; this servant inherited the rude dwelling and ceased to think of advancement. When the imperial troops came in their merciful campaign, I noted things on paper as they came to mind, in some 220 entries, titled Diàojī lìtán.” A second recension, printed by Cáo Yín, lacks the preface and opens instead with two entries — Yángshì yǒu JiāngHuái 楊氏奄有江淮 and Zhàowáng Lǐ Déchéng 趙王李德誠 — and elsewhere differs in ways that show editorial activity; it attributes the work to 史虛白 Shǐ Xūbái, on the authority of the Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì. Mǎ Lìng’s 馬令 NánTáng shū KR2i0017 gives Shǐ Xūbái as a man of Shāndōng who came south with 韓熙載 in Zhèngmíngjìluàn 中原多事 — but no biography places him among writers. The “shànshāngǔyǒu yǐnjūnzǐzhě 山東有隱君子者” entry of this very book describes a man who came south with Hán Xīzǎi, refused the jiàoshūláng offered him by Lièzǔ, and never took office; this man is Shǐ Xūbái. The preface twice says xiān jiàoshū 先校書, “my late father the jiàoshūláng” — so the writer is Shǐ Xūbái’s son. The Sòngshǐ attribution is mistaken; Cáo Yín’s printing under Shǐ Xūbái’s name is uncritical. There is also a separate Southern-Sòng Diàojī lìtán by 費樞 Fèi Shū, preserved in the Shuōfú, the contents of which are completely different — a homonymous work, not a variant. The book is a miscellany on the events of the Southern Táng with appended judgments, including the famous notice of 徐鉉 Xú Xuàn’s reception of the imperial commission to draft the Jiāngnán shì 江南事 with 湯悅 Tāng Yuè, and the warning against 潘佑 Pān Yòu’s defamation by misrepresentation — a záshǐ 雜史 not lacking in critical judgment.
Abstract
The Diàojī lìtán was composed by the anonymous son of 史虛白 Shǐ Xūbái, in the years immediately after the Sòng conquest of the Southern Táng (974–975). The composition window is c. 975–1000 (post-conquest, within the surviving generation). The misattribution to Shǐ Xūbái himself originates in the Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì and is repeated by Cáo Yín. The careful internal reading of the preface by the Sìkù editors — pointing out the writer’s repeated reference to xiān jiàoshū — is unanswerable. The book is a primary source for the politics of the late Southern Táng (c. 950s–970s): it is the unique witness to several episodes including the political downfall of 潘佑 Pān Yòu under the slander campaign mounted by Lǐ Píng 李平 and his allies, and the specific role of 徐鉉 Xú Xuàn in editing the official Jiāngnán shì under the early Sòng. The book is cited extensively in 馬令 Mǎ Lìng’s and 陸游 Lù Yóu’s later NánTáng shū recensions (KR2i0017, KR2i0018) and in 吳任臣 Wú Rènchén’s Shíguó Chūnqiū KR2i0021.
Translations and research
- Johannes Kurz. 2011. China’s Southern Tang Dynasty (937–976). London: Routledge. — Major Western monograph on the Southern Táng, drawing on the Diào-jī lì-tán.
- Kurz, Johannes L. 2003. “Hai Internis Discordiis Disjectus — On the Sources for the History of the Southern T’ang Dynasty (937–975).” Tang Studies 21: 75–115.
- No standalone English translation of the Diào-jī lì-tán.
- The Lín-ān printing-shop attribution makes the Diào-jī lì-tán one of a small set of identifiable products of the Southern-Sòng commercial book trade.
Other points of interest
The colophon “Línānfǔ Tàimiàoqián Yǐnjiā shūjípù” — Yǐnjiā (Yīn family) shop in front of the Imperial Ancestral Temple in Línān — places the recension Yè Línzōng / Qián Zēng acquired squarely in the Southern-Sòng Hángzhōu commercial book market, one of the major centers of Sòng-period printing.