Jiāngbiǎo Zhì 江表志
Annals of Jiāng-biǎo (the Southern Táng) by 鄭文寶 (撰)
About the work
The Jiāngbiǎo Zhì, in 3 juàn (one for each Southern-Táng ruler), is the third great early-Sòng history of the Southern Táng (alongside 陳彭年’s KR2i0010 and 龍袞’s KR2i0009). Its author 鄭文寶 Zhèng Wénbǎo (953–1013), zì Zhòngxián 仲賢, of Nínghuà 寧化 (Fújiàn), was the son of the Southern-Táng Zhènhǎi jiēdùshǐ 鄭彥華 Zhèng Yànhuá and a personal disciple of 徐鉉 Xú Xuàn. A jìnshì of Tàipíngxīngguó 8 (983) under the early Sòng, he rose to Shǎnxī zhuǎnyùnshǐ and Bīngbù yuánwàiláng. The Jiāngbiǎo Zhì was composed in 1010 (Dàzhōngxiángfú 大中祥符 3, gēngxū) — Cháo Gōngwǔ’s notice records the date — explicitly to supplement 徐鉉 Xú Xuàn’s official Jiāngnán lù and to set down what Zhèng had heard at firsthand from his Southern-Táng family and from Xú Xuàn personally. The book is brief but unusually authoritative as a source for Southern-Táng court politics; the famous attribution of the poem Jiāngnán jiāngběi jiùjiāxiāng 江南江北舊家鄉 to Wú Rànghuáng 楊溥 Yáng Pǔ originates here.
Tiyao
By Zhèng Wénbǎo 鄭文寶 of the Sòng. Wénbǎo, zì Zhòngxián, of Nínghuà 寧化. Son of 鄭彥華 Zhèng Yànhuá, the Southern-Táng Zhènhǎi jiēdùshǐ. He first served as Jiàoshūláng 校書郎 [under the Southern Táng]; under the Sòng he passed the Tàipíngxīngguó 8 (983) jìnshì exam, rising to Shǎnxī zhuǎnyùnshǐ and Bīngbù yuánwàiláng. The Dōngdū shìlüè 東都事略 places him in its Wényìzhuàn 文藝傳. When 徐鉉 Xú Xuàn and 湯悅 Tāng Yuè had been commissioned by the Sòng court to compile the Jiāngnán lù on the Lǐ family of the Southern Táng, much was omitted. Wénbǎo accordingly composed this work to supply the gap. The upper juàn covers Lièzǔ; the middle juàn, Yuánzōng (Sìzhǔ); the lower juàn, Hòuzhǔ. He did not date events by year and month; for princes and great ministers he gives only their names, without biographical detail. The records are remarkably brief. He copies in full 韓熙載 Hán Xīzǎi’s Guīguó zhuàng 歸國狀 and 張佖 Zhāng Bì’s one jiànshū 諫書 — what to retain and what to drop is, in this respect, hard to follow. Wénbǎo was a Southern-Táng jiùchén 舊臣. Lǐ Yúzhī’s 李攸之 Yànběi zázhì 硯北雜志 records that after the Guīguó (the absorption of the Southern Táng), Wénbǎo would frequently visit the captive 李煜 Lǐ Yù wearing a straw raincoat and bamboo hat, in the guise of a fisherman, to bring comfort to Yù — and Yù was deeply moved. Cài Tāo’s 蔡絛 Tiěwéishān cóngtán 鐵圍山叢談 further records that Wénbǎo had originally been a disciple of 徐鉉 Xú Xuàn, and when serving as Shǎnxī zhuǎnyùnshǐ with Xú Xuàn now banished as a xièjí 謫居, would still visit Xú in the formal disciple’s bow, which Xú accepted seated. He was a man devoted to old loyalties and to teacher-pupil bonds. Hence his account of the fall of the Hòuzhǔ explains it as the result of guǒyú zìxìn 果於自信 (over-confidence) and the Yuèrén shǐmóu 越人始謀 — the Yuè (WúYuè) opened the conspiracy against Lǐ Yù — close to what 徐鉉 writes on Lǐ Yù’s tombstone. There is a moral position. Wáng Gǒng’s 王鞏 Suíshǒu zálù 隨手雜錄 quotes verbatim Wénbǎo’s account of the Hòu-zhǔ-period tribute and tax burdens, with the explicit citation “Jiāngbiǎo zhì zhuàn by Zhèng Wénbǎo” — the book was clearly considered authoritative. The poem Jiāngnán jiāngběi jiùjiāxiāng — in 馬令 Mǎ Lìng’s NánTáng shū attributed to Lǐ Yù — Wénbǎo here gives to Wú Rànghuáng 楊溥 Yáng Pǔ; since Wénbǎo personally served Lǐ Yù, his attribution is the firsthand witness, and corrects Mǎ Lìng’s error. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s notice records Wénbǎo’s preface dated gēngxū 庚戌, that is Dàzhōngxiángfú 3 (1010); the present recension lacks the preface, supplied here from the Xuéhǎi lèibiān 學海類編 to complete the book.
Abstract
鄭文寶 Zhèng Wénbǎo (953–1013), the son of a senior Southern-Táng general and a personal disciple of 徐鉉 Xú Xuàn, composed the Jiāngbiǎo Zhì in Dàzhōngxiángfú 3 (1010) — the date is given in his preface as gēngxū. Composition is therefore precisely datable. The book is the third major early-Sòng Southern-Táng history (after the Jiāngnán lù of 徐鉉 / 湯悅 and Chén Péngnián’s Jiāngnán Biélù KR2i0010) and is uniquely valuable for two reasons. First, Zhèng was a participant-witness: he served Lǐ Yù personally before the conquest and continued to visit him in captivity after; his attributions of poems and his narrations of court politics carry the weight of firsthand knowledge. Second, the book’s ethical posture (siding with the Hòuzhǔ in his explanation of the conquest, which echoes 徐鉉 Xú Xuàn’s tomb-inscription for Lǐ Yù) reflects the small but real Southern-Táng loyalist tradition within early Northern-Sòng literati culture. The book is heavily cited in Sīmǎ Guāng’s Zīzhì tōngjiàn, Wáng Gǒng’s Suíshǒu zálù, and the later NánTáng shū recensions of 馬令 and 陸游 KR2i0017, KR2i0018. The famous poem Jiāngnán jiāngběi jiùjiāxiāng — long attributed to Lǐ Yù — Zhèng here gives instead to the captive Wú Rànghuáng 楊溥 Yáng Pǔ, almost certainly correctly. The anonymous Jiāngnán yúzǎi KR2i0012 is in part an abridgement / corrective edition of this very work.
Translations and research
- 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. — Treats the Jiāng-biǎo Zhì among the Southern-Táng sources.
- Kurz, Johannes L. 2011. China’s Southern Tang Dynasty (937–976). London: Routledge.
- Standard modern Chinese edition: in Wǔ-dài shǐ-shū huì-biān 五代史書彙編 (Hangzhou, 2004).
- No standalone English translation.
Other points of interest
Zhèng Wénbǎo’s relationship with Xú Xuàn — disciple visiting his banished teacher in formal bow — was famous in the Sòng as a model of zūnshī 尊師, and is itself one of the most-cited literary anecdotes of Northern-Sòng intellectual culture. The Jiāngbiǎo Zhì is its primary surviving textual witness.