Sòng zǎifǔ biānnián lù 宋宰輔編年錄
Year-by-Year Record of Sòng Grand Councillors and Co-Adjutors by 徐自明 (Xú Zìmíng, 撰)
About the work
The Sòng zǎifǔ biānnián lù in 20 juǎn is a Southern Sòng chronological prosopography of every Northern and early Southern Sòng zǎifǔ 宰輔 (“grand councillors and co-adjutors” — i.e., heads of the Department of State Affairs and the Bureau of Military Affairs taken together). The chronicle runs from Jiànlóng 1 (建隆庚申, 960) — the founding of the Sòng — through Jiādìng 8 (嘉定乙亥, 1215), a span of more than 250 years. For each zǎifǔ the work records date of appointment, date of dismissal, the public reason for the change, and where possible the actual zhì (rescript of investiture) text drawn from the Yùtáng zhìcǎo 玉堂制草 archive of imperial drafting and from the Sòng dàzhàolìng jí 宋大詔令集. The chronicle was finished by Xú Zìmíng 徐自明 (a Tài cháng bóshì 太常博士 of Yǒngjiā 永嘉, modern Wēnzhōu 溫州) in or just after 1215 and was first printed by his son Xú Jūyì 徐居誼, then magistrate of Yǒngfú 永福, at the county school in Bǎoyòu 5 (1257). The 1257 imprint is the source of the surviving prefaces by Lù Déyú 陸德輿, Chén Fǎng 陳昉, and Zhāng Zhù 章鑄, all dated to that year.
Tiyao
For two hundred and fifty years, the rise and fall of the worthy and the unscrupulous are all in this book. As an examination of governmental policy and an aid to administrative warning, the author may be said truly to have been versed in dynastic precedents. In the Bǎoyòu period, Zìmíng’s son Jūyí, magistrate of Yǒngfú, had it carved at the county school. It later became scattered. In the Míng Jiājìng period, Lǚ Bāngyào 呂邦燿 of Dàxīng 大興 first obtained a manuscript copy from Jiāo Hóng 焦竑’s house, lacking two juǎn. Later the Zhōu princely descendant Qínyé 勤(王業) supplied what remained from his family copy, and the work was printed and transmitted again — a barely surviving recension.
Abstract
The Sòng zǎifǔ biānnián lù is a major secondary source for Northern and Southern Sòng political history, structured as a chronological tabulation of every Grand Councillor and Vice Grand Councillor appointment, dismissal, and re-appointment, augmented with extensive citation of the Sòng dàzhàolìng jí 宋大詔令集 and the Yùtáng zhìcǎo 玉堂制草 to give the actual text of imperial rescripts. Xú Zìmíng explicitly built on the earlier prosopographical efforts of Chén Yì, Sīmǎ Guāng, Zēng Gǒng, and Lǐ Tāo (whose Cháng biān 長編 supplied his backbone for the Northern Sòng); the work supplements all of them. As prosopography, it is sometimes more reliable than the Sòngshǐ “Year-table of Grand Councillors” (宰輔年表), with which the Sìkù editors carefully compared it to register many divergences at the daily gānzhī level. The transmission history is unusually well documented: the 1257 Yǒngfú printing was lost, the work nearly lost, recovered by Lǚ Bāngyào 呂邦燿 in the Míng Jiājìng era from Jiāo Hóng 焦竑’s collection (with two missing juǎn later supplied by the Zhōu princely line), and from there into the Sìkù.
Translations and research
- Wáng Ruìlái 王瑞來, ed. 1986. Sòng zǎifǔ biānnián lù jiào bǔ 宋宰輔編年錄校補. 4 vols. Zhonghua. Critical edition with extensive collation against the Cháng biān, Yàolù, Sòngshǐ, and other sources; the standard modern reference.
- Lǐ Yùmǐn 李裕民. 1987. Sòng zǎifǔ biānnián lù jiào bǔ kǎo yì 宋宰輔編年錄校補考異 (review and corrections in Wénshǐ 文史 and elsewhere).
- Hartman, Charles. 2021. The Making of Song Dynasty History: Sources and Narratives, 960–1279 CE. Cambridge UP. (Treats the prosopographical literature, including Xú Zìmíng’s chronicle.)
Other points of interest
The work’s documentary character — embedding full zhì texts of investiture and dismissal — makes it an important corrective to the Sòngshǐ “Treatise on Officials” (職官志), which is comparatively schematic. Many zhì texts surviving today are known only via this chronicle.