Bǎiguān zhēn 百官箴
Admonitions for the Hundred Offices by 許月卿 (Xǔ Yuèqīng, 撰)
About the work
The Bǎiguān zhēn in 6 juǎn is a Southern Sòng compilation of rhymed admonitions, modelled on Yáng Xióng’s 揚雄 lost Guān zhēn 官箴, addressing every office of the Sòng central government with a separate verse. Its author, Xǔ Yuèqīng 許月卿 (1216–1285; zì Tàikōng 太空, hào Quántián zǐ 泉田子, native of Wùyuán 婺源), was a jìnshì of the Lǐzōng reign who held a series of intermediate posts before being demoted out of office for opposing Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道. He retired to Wùyuán and “shut his door and wrote books” (閉門著書) for ten years until his death in 1285, refusing to serve the Yuán. The book proper consists of forty-nine admonitions covering the highest offices (Left Grand Councillor on down) through to the various subordinate bureaus. According to Xǔ Yuèqīng’s own preface, the original work had seven zhì 秩 (sections) including a prefatory fán lì 凡例 that subsequent transmission folded into the main text, leaving 6 juǎn.
Tiyao
The editors respectfully submit that the Bǎiguān zhēn in 6 juǎn was composed by Xǔ Yuèqīng of the Sòng. Yuèqīng, zì Tàikōng 太空, later changed his style to Sòngshì 宋士, was a native of Wùyuán 婺源. He first received an attendant’s commission for military merit, and under Lǐzōng received civil rank by virtue of having topped the Yì examination at the Jiāngdōng court audience, being awarded jìnshì and finally posted as Vice Director of the Zhèjiāng Western Circuit Transport. When Jiǎ Sìdào held court, Yuèqīng was summoned to the Library examination but spoke in disagreement and was dismissed; he closed his door and wrote books, calling himself Quántián zǐ 泉田子. He did not serve the Yuán; he lived in retirement for ten years and then died — a man of moral integrity. This book imitates Yáng Xióng’s Guān zhēn in dividing offices and listing duties, with admonitions for each.
Examining the Sòngshǐ “Treatise on the Hundred Offices” (百官志): the jīngyán 經筵 was concurrently held by yánlù (remonstrance) officials; the staff of the Two Bureaus belonged to the under-officials of the Privy Council and Secretariat; the Vice Grand Councillor was held concurrently with the Vice Director of the Chancellery and Secretariat; the Court of Appeal (登聞院) was attached to the Office of Remonstrance; the Bureau of Submitted Memorials (進奏院) was attached to the Director of Court Notices, all under the Chancellery; the Court of Armaments and the Court of Texts and Records were both subordinate to the Department of Works. This work has separate admonitions for each: classifying by what each office handles, and so listing both the principal duty and the concurrent post, both the general bureau and the sub-bureau — not duplication.
The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves Hé Yì’s 何異 Zhōngxīng bǎiguān tímíng 中興百官題名, which though incomplete and not whole, has labels of office and duties differing somewhat from those in this book; this is because after the Yuánfēng reorganization the office names became thoroughly tangled, and after the southern crossing the divisions and consolidations were further inconstant; the present book reflects the system of one moment, and hence the discrepancies. Before the work stands Yuèqīng’s jìn biǎo 進表 saying the Bǎiguān zhēn with its prefatory fán lì 凡例 totalled seven zhì, but this stops at 6 juǎn; collated against the table of contents there is no real omission — perhaps the original fán lì was a separate juǎn later folded in.
The “Yúrén zhī zhēn” 虞人之箴 (“Admonition of the Forester”) is recorded long ago in the Zuǒ zhuàn 左傳: rectifying defects, correcting transgressions — its style is ancient. Yuèqīng imitates this style, even if the duties of his offices are more nominal than substantive; yet the listing of the corruption of officials, the warning of the holders of position, the indication of good and evil, all strike the eye and admonish the heart, are not without occasional benefit. Respectfully collated, eighth month of Qiánlóng 42 (1777).
Abstract
The Bǎiguān zhēn sits at the intersection of two Sòng genres — institutional cataloguing (in the manner of KR2l0007 Sòng zǎifǔ biānnián lù) and moral guānzhēn admonition (in the manner of KR2l0017 Guānzhēn and KR2l0020 Zhòulián xùlùn). Its archaic literary form imitates the lost Hàn-era Guān zhēn of Yáng Xióng, addressing each office with a brief verse that lays out its proper duty and the moral dangers of its abuse. As a prosopographical or institutional record it is sometimes inconsistent with the Sòngshǐ “Treatise on the Hundred Offices,” reflecting (the Sìkù editors note) the chaotic state of office nomenclature after the Yuánfēng reform of 1078–80 and the further dislocations of the Southern Sòng. Xǔ Yuèqīng was a student of Wèi Liǎowēng 魏了翁 (one of the major late-Sòng Confucian scholars) and a friend of Xiè Fāngdé 謝枋得 (a famous Sòng loyalist who refused to serve the Yuán). The political circumstances of the work’s composition — Xǔ’s exclusion from office after his confrontation with Jiǎ Sìdào, the impending fall of the Sòng — give it the additional quality of a Confucian yímín 遺民 protest in literary form.
Translations and research
- Guānzhēnshū jíchéng 官箴書集成. Huángshān, 1997.
- Will, Pierre-Étienne. 2020. Handbooks and anthologies for officials in imperial China. Brill. (Treats the Bǎiguān zhēn in the guānzhēn tradition.)
- Sō-Gen kanshin sōgō sakuin 宋元官箴綜合索引. 1987.
Other points of interest
Xǔ Yuèqīng’s deliberate change of zì from Tàikōng 太空 (“Great Emptiness”) to Sòngshì 宋士 (“Sòng officer”) is itself a piece of textual evidence: it dates from after the Sòng’s fall and registers his refusal to serve the Yuán. This biographical detail — preserved in the Sìkù Tíyào — frames the Bǎiguān zhēn as a piece of Confucian institutional reflection produced by a politically dispossessed but morally serious literatus.