Lùshì NánTáng Shū 陸氏南唐書
Lù Yóu’s “Book of the Southern Táng” by 陸游 (撰); with Yuán-period phonetic and textual notes (yīnshì 音釋) by 戚光 Qī Guāng (printed 1328, transmitted with the text in this recension but not in the catalog persons listing)
About the work
The Lùshì NánTáng Shū, in 18 juàn (Qián Zēng’s Dúshū mǐnqiú jì records an old Sòng-print recension in 15 juàn — superseded by the standard 18-juàn Yuán-printing), is the second great Sòng-period dynastic history of the Southern Táng 南唐 (937–975), composed late in the life of 陸游 Lù Yóu (1125–1210). It is more austere, more concise, and more rigorously shǐjiā in form than the earlier 馬令 30-juàn recension KR2i0017. Lù Yóu’s Hòuzhǔ shū and Sìzhǔ shū are written in běnjì 本紀 form (rather than the zhǔ 主 of Mǎ Lìng’s KR2i0017 or the Zǎijì 載記 of 胡恢 Hú Huī’s lost recension) — a choice the Sìkù editors criticize on classical-historiographical grounds (Liú Zhījī, in the Shǐtōng Běnjì chapter, had explicitly held that vassal kings should not receive běnjì treatment), but which reflects Lù Yóu’s Southern-Sòng patriotic sensibility regarding the Lǐshì of Southern Táng. The Yuán scholar 戚光 Qī Guāng of Jīnlíng produced an yīnshì 音釋 in 1 juàn (printed under his student 程塾 Chéng Shú in Tiānlì 天歷 1 / 1328, with a preface by Zhào Shìyán 趙世延); both Lù’s text and Qī’s yīnshì are transmitted together in the standard WèiNángjí 渭南集 (Máo Jìn 毛晉 Jígǔgé 汲古閣) printing.
Tiyao
By Lù Yóu 陸游 of the Sòng. Yóu’s Rùshǔ jì KR2g0056 is already catalogued. In the early Sòng, six writers compiled records of Southern-Táng affairs (徐鉉, 湯悅, 王舉 Wáng Jǔ, 路振 Lù Zhèn, 陳彭年 Chén Péngnián, 楊億 Yáng Yì): all in general too brief. Of those who wrote a NánTáng shū of their own, three: 胡恢 Hú Huī, 馬令 Mǎ Lìng, and Lù Yóu. Hú Huī’s recension is rare today; Wáng Shìzhēn’s 王士禎 Chíběi ǒután 池北偶談 records that the Míng Yùshǐ Lǐ Yīngshēng’s 李應昇 uncle had a copy, but we have not seen one. Mǎ Lìng’s and Lù Yóu’s recensions both circulate widely; Lù’s is the more jiǎnhé 簡核 (concise and pointed), the more methodical. Yuán Tiānlì 1 (1328), Jīnlíng’s 戚光 Qī Guāng prepared a yīnshì (phonetic and textual notes); Bóshì Chéng Shú 程塾 et al. printed it; Zhào Shìyán 趙世延 wrote the preface. Qián Zēng’s Dúshū mǐnqiú jì records that the old text follows the Shǐjì / Hànshū convention of mǒujì mǒuzhuàn juǎndìjǐ 某紀某傳卷第幾, with the title NánTáng shū in interlinear note. Wáng Shìzhēn’s Gǔfúyútíng zálù 古夫于亭雜錄 reports that his ménrén 門人 Chéng Wénzhāo 成文昭 of Dàmíng sent him a Sòng-block-print recension in 15 juàn, with arrangement somewhat different from the present 18-juàn print. Both manuscripts are now lost. What circulates is 毛晉 Máo Jìn’s Jígǔgé edition appended to the Wèinángjí 渭南集, which has altered the original format and divided the juàn count. The Southern-Táng Yuánzōng (Sìzhǔ Lǐ Jǐng) in Xiǎndé 5 (= 958) renounced the imperial title and styled himself Jiāngnán Guózhǔ 江南國主. Hú Huī, following the Jìnshū Zǎijì 載記 convention, used the Zǎijì form — not without reason. Lù Yóu, however, treats Lièzǔ, Yuánzōng, and Hòuzhǔ alike with Běnjì — and in his Lièzǔlùn 烈祖論 cites Sū Sòng’s 蘇頌 saying that the Shǐjì gives Qín Zhuāngxiāngwáng and Xiàng Yǔ běnjì — and severely criticizes Hú Huī’s Zǎijì approach. But Liú Zhījī’s Shǐtōng Běnjì chapter has long held: “Jī’s line from HòuJì down to the Xībó, Yíng’s from Bóyì down to Zhuāngxiāng — they were marquises and lords, but their names are listed under Běnjì.” Liú further says: “Xiàng Yǔ was a usurper-bandit who died without becoming a true ruler. Even granting him the imperial style, one would still have to suppress him below the rebel-bands. The more so when his name was XīChǔ 西楚, his title only Bàwáng 霸王. To list a vassal in Běnjì, against name and reality, is utterly inconsistent.” Sīmǎ Qiān’s lapse here was already deeply criticized by Liú. Lù Yóu’s appeal to it was muddled. Was it perhaps because the Southern Sòng’s own situation of piānān 偏安 in the south led him to zuǒtǎn 左袒 (favor) the Lǐshì? Other choices — placing the HòuFēi zhūwángzhuàn after the regular Lièzhuàn, placing the Záyì fāngshìzhuàn before the Zhōngyìzhuàn — also ignore standard form. Read it for the conciseness of its narrative.
Abstract
陸游 Lù Yóu (1125–1210) — one of the four great Southern-Sòng poets and the most prolific of them — wrote the NánTáng shū late in his life, after his retirement to Shānyīn 山陰 in his late sixties; the standard scholarly placement of composition is c. 1180–1209 (between the Rùshǔ jì of 1170 and his death in early 1210). His grandfather 陸佃 Lù Diàn (the Wáng Ān-shí-school Zhōulǐ commentator) and father Lù Zǎi 陸宰 had been senior Sòng officials; the family Jiāngnán roots inform the work’s sympathies. Lù Yóu, like Mǎ Lìng before him, drew on the now-lost Jiāngnán lù of 徐鉉 / 湯悅 and on the surviving private accounts of 陳彭年, 鄭文寶, 龍袞, and the KR2i0008 Diàojī lìtán. The 18-juàn structure is more economical than Mǎ Lìng’s 30 juàn: 3 juàn of Běnjì (Lièzǔ, Yuánzōng, Hòuzhǔ), then 15 juàn of lièzhuàn organized into broad ethical / functional categories (consorts and princes, civil officials, frontier commanders, zhōngyì, fāngshù, záyì, etc.). The Sìkù editors note that Lù Yóu’s choice of Běnjì form for the Southern-Táng rulers (against Liú Zhījī’s Shǐtōng prescriptions and against Hú Huī’s Zǎijì recension) reflects his Southern-Sòng piānān sensibility — a quietly subversive editorial choice, since the Southern Sòng’s situation south of the Yangtze paralleled that of the Southern Táng three centuries earlier. The Yuán phonetic-and-textual notes by 戚光 Qī Guāng (printed 1328) are transmitted alongside the text in the Sìkù recension. Modern scholarship (Kurz 2011) regards Lù’s NánTáng shū as the most reliable single Sòng-period source.
Structural Division
Note: this work is structured in Běnjì + lièzhuàn form. The standard 18-juàn arrangement (per the Sìkù recension):
- juàn 1–3: Běnjì — Lièzǔ (李昪 Lǐ Biàn), Yuánzōng (李璟 Lǐ Jǐng), Hòuzhǔ (李煜 Lǐ Yù)
- juàn 4–15: Lièzhuàn — Hòufēizhuàn, Zōngshìzhuàn, civil ministers, military commanders, Wényìzhuàn, Yǐnyìzhuàn, Zhōngyìzhuàn, Fāngshùzhuàn, Záyìzhuàn, Pànchénzhuàn, Mièguózhuàn (the Mǐn Wángshì and Chǔ Mǎshì)
- juàn 16–18: appendices and chronological tables.
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.
- Kurz, Johannes L. 2011. China’s Southern Tang Dynasty (937–976). London: Routledge. — Major modern Western monograph drawing on Lù Yóu.
- Standard modern Chinese edition: in Èr-shí-wǔ bié-shǐ 二十五別史 (Qí-Lǔ shū-shè).
- Tāng Yáo-fā 湯堯發 (ed.). 1990s. Lù-shì Nán-Táng shū jiào-zhù 陸氏南唐書校註.
- No standalone English translation.
Other points of interest
The choice of Běnjì form for the Southern-Táng rulers — defended by Lù Yóu in his Lièzǔlùn against Hú Huī’s Zǎijì form — is one of the most significant editorial decisions in Sòng-period dynastic historiography. The Sìkù editors’ suggestion that this reflects Lù Yóu’s Southern-Sòng piānān loyalism is now a standard scholarly reading.