Jiāngnán Yúzǎi 江南餘載
Supplementary Records of Jiāng-nán by anonymous
About the work
The Jiāngnán Yúzǎi, in 2 juàn, is a Northern-Sòng anonymous miscellany on the Southern Táng compiled in the Xīníng 熙寧 era (specifically Xīníng 8 / 1075, per the original preface), explicitly as a corrective edition of 鄭文寶 Zhèng Wénbǎo’s KR2i0011 Jiāngbiǎo Zhì. The compiler — anonymous, mistitled in some bibliographic traditions as Jiāngnán Guǎnzǎi 江南館載 (a zì corruption) — explains in a surviving preface (preserved in 陳振孫’s Shūlù jiětí) that the existing six-author tradition on the Southern Táng (Xú Xuàn / Tāng Yuè, Wáng Jǔ 王舉, Lù Zhèn 路振, Chén Péngnián, Yáng Yì 楊億, Lóng Gǔn) was inadequate, and that he had obtained Zhèng Wénbǎo’s manuscript at Chǔzhōu 楚州 in 1075, from which he excerpted 195 entries by category. The book was lost in the Yuán / Míng and recovered by the Sìkù editors from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. It survives because the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserved many entries that are no longer in the truncated Jiāngbiǎo Zhì.
Tiyao
The compiler is unnamed. The Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì lists it in its Bàshǐ 霸史 category, also without an author. Mǎ Duānlín’s 馬端臨 Wénxiàn tōngkǎo 文獻通考 and Qī Guāng’s 戚光 NánTáng shū yīnshì 南唐書音釋 both write the title as Jiāngnán Guǎnzǎi 江南館載 — a graphical corruption. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records the original preface, which reads in summary: “徐鉉 Xú Xuàn first received the imperial commission to write the Jiāngnán lù; thereafter 王舉 Wáng Jǔ, 路振 Lù Zhèn, 陳彭年 Chén Péngnián, and 楊億 Yáng Yì all wrote books, but in general all six authors are insufficient as historians, and 龍袞 Lóng Gǔn most of all. In Xīníng 8 (= 1075) I obtained at Chǔzhōu the shù (work) of Mr. Zhèng. Where his accounts of events were absent from the six authors or differed somewhat from them, I excerpted and corrected them, taking 195 duàn and arranging them by category.” Chén Zhènsūn says of “Mr. Zhèng” only that the identity is unknown. But 鄭文寶 Zhèng Wénbǎo wrote the NánTáng jìnshì 南唐近事 in 2 juàn (Tàipíngxīngguó 2 / 977) and the Jiāngbiǎo Zhì 江表志 KR2i0011 in 3 juàn (Dàzhōngxiángfú 3 / 1010), and is not in the list of six authors of the present preface — so “Mr. Zhèng” must be Zhèng Wénbǎo. Examining the present book, its narratives and those of KR2i0011 are mutually intercalated; the 删落是正 (“excerpt-and-correct”) of the preface is in fact based on KR2i0011’s manuscript. The currently surviving Jiāngbiǎo Zhì has the title-count of 3 juàn but is in fact only 24 sheets in length — it is mutilated. The preface’s “195 duàn” are not all visible today, but those preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn are still numerous, many of them passages not in the present Jiāngbiǎo Zhì. So while Jiāngbiǎo Zhì survives in name but is mostly lost, this book is lost in name but largely preserved, in the Dàdiǎn. The Sòngzhì and Chén Zhènsūn both list it in 2 juàn, in agreement with all family catalogues; we have here gathered the recovered text into 2 juàn, as a supplement to the now-mutilated Jiāngbiǎo Zhì.
Abstract
The Jiāngnán Yúzǎi is the work of an anonymous Northern-Sòng compiler of the Xīníng 熙寧 era (specifically Xīníng 8 / 1075 by the surviving preface) — frontmatter dating notBefore 1075, notAfter 1100 captures the surviving evidence. The book’s particular value is double: (a) it explicitly criticises 龍袞’s KR2i0009 Jiāngnán Yěshǐ — the locus classicus of that criticism is here — and (b) it preserves substantial passages of 鄭文寶’s KR2i0011 Jiāngbiǎo Zhì that are lost from the surviving 3-juàn text of the latter. Its modern existence depends entirely on the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn: it was lost as a separate text in the Yuán / Míng and was recovered by the Sìkù editors. The 195 entries of the original — arranged by topical category — are not all preserved, but enough survive (as 2 juàn) for it to function as a primary supplement to the Jiāngbiǎo Zhì. Cross-referencing with the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn citations of Jiāngbiǎo Zhì allows partial reconstruction of Zhèng Wénbǎo’s lost passages.
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. — Important treatment of the Jiāng-nán Yú-zǎi and its relation to the rest of the Southern-Táng historiographical tradition.
- 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
The book’s anonymous preface — unusually pointed in its criticism of named contemporaries (Lóng Gǔn singled out as the worst of the six) — is itself one of the most pointed surviving documents of Northern-Sòng historiographical self-reflection. The Jiāngnán Yúzǎi and the Jiāngbiǎo Zhì form a paired textual ecosystem: each preserves what the other has lost.