DōngHàn Huìyào 東漢會要
Essential Documents and Regulations of the Later Hàn by 徐天麟 (撰)
About the work
Xú Tiānlín’s continuation of his XīHàn Huìyào, completed and presented in Bǎoqìng 2 (1226) while he was Erudite of the Military Academy. Same fifteen-gate structure as the earlier work, with 384 entries; based primarily on Fàn Yè’s Hòu Hànshū 後漢書 but cross-cutting with the Xù Hàn shū of Sīmǎ Biāo 司馬彪, Yuán Hóng’s 袁宏 Hòu Hàn jì 後漢紀, the Dōngguān Hàn jì 東觀漢記, and the Hàn guān yí 漢官儀, Hàn jiùyí 漢舊儀, and Hàn zájì. Xú adds his own occasional commentary (ànyǔ 案語) and quoted opinions of others, following Sū Miǎn’s example—a methodological advance over the XīHàn Huìyào.
Tiyao
By Xú Tiānlín of the Sòng. While Education Officer of Fǔzhōu, Tiānlín had already memorialized the XīHàn Huìyào; later, as Erudite of the Military Academy, he completed this work and presented it to the throne in Bǎoqìng 2 (1226). Its format is identical to the previous work: fifteen gates, 384 entries. The difference is that the XīHàn Huìyào contains no editorial judgments, while this work occasionally appends àn (case-comments) and quotes the opinions of others, following Sū Miǎn’s principle. After the Eastern Hàn restoration under Guāngwǔ, Mǐngdì and Zhāngdì pressed urgently to restore lapsed institutions; statutes and protocols flourished beyond what the Western Hàn had had. Contemporary scholar-historians—the Dōngguān jì, Huá Jiáo, Sīmǎ Biāo, Yuán Hóng, etc.—left fragmentary writings that survived in part. Other texts such as the Hàn guān yí, Hàn zájì, Hàn jiùyí, cited in the standard commentaries, can also be partly reconstructed. So the institutional record of the Eastern Hàn is, in the round, fuller than that of the Western Hàn. Tiānlín takes Fàn Yè as his base text and threads the other sources through, gathering everything in. His division of categories and the orderly arrangement are of real value for textual research.
In some places, however, he is over-strict. Émperor Xiàn 獻 had four sons: Xī 熙 made King of Jǐyīn, Yì 懿 made King of Shānyáng, Mò 邈 made King of Jǐběi, Dūn 敦 made King of Dōnghǎi. Although their fiefs were established by the Cáo and soon downgraded to lièhóu, having been enfeoffed they belong properly under the imperial-genealogy / imperial-sons heading. But because Fàn Yè has no biography for them, Tiānlín suppresses them—an omission. Again, in his preface, Tiānlín says Liú Zhāo 劉昭 used Fàn’s framework as the basis for his commentary on the eight treatises, not knowing that those treatises are in fact Sīmǎ Biāo’s Xù Hàn shū, not Fàn Yè’s. Cháo Gōngwǔ already noted this. These are casual oversights. The work as a whole is detailed and exact; small inconsistencies do not detract.
The transmitted text, all from Sòng-edition copies, has juǎn 37 and 38 entirely lost, and juǎn 36 and 39 each missing half; no supplement has been possible, and we leave them as they are.
Abstract
Bǎoqìng 2 (1226), the year of Xú’s submission of the work, is set as both notBefore and notAfter. The work was the second of Xú’s two huìyào and a methodological refinement of the first—he added editorial comment and brought in non-canonical sources, expanding the documentary base beyond a single standard history. The Sìkù editors emphasize this: because the Eastern Hàn institutional record was supplied not only by Fàn Yè but also by Sīmǎ Biāo, Yuán Hóng, and the Dōngguān Hàn jì together with the Hàn guān yí / Hàn jiùyí family of texts, Xú could weave a denser fabric than the Hànshū alone allowed.
The transmitted text is incomplete: juǎn 37 and 38 are wholly lost and juǎn 36 and 39 partial—a state of preservation already noted by the Sìkù editors and preserved in modern editions. Wilkinson (§51.1, Box 263) recommends both Hàn huìyào together with the punctuated 1955 Zhōnghuá edition. Xú Tiānlín’s preface mistakenly attributes Sīmǎ Biāo’s eight treatises to Fàn Yè (citing Liú Zhāo’s commentary)—an error pointed out by Cháo Gōngwǔ.
Translations and research
Standard punctuated edition: Dōng-Hàn Huìyào 東漢會要, Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1955 (with Shànghǎi gǔjí 1978 reprint; in Scripta Sinica). Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §51.1, recommends both punctuated huìyào together. Specialist work includes Lǚ Zōnglì 呂宗力, “Liǎng Hàn Huìyào yǔ Hàn-dài zhèngzhì zhìdù shǐ” (Wénxiàn 文獻 1996.3); and Hú Zhōngfèng 胡忠峰, Xú Tiānlín liǎng-Hàn huìyào yánjiū 徐天麟兩漢會要研究 (PhD diss., Wǔhàn Univ., 2010), the first comprehensive textual and methodological study.
Other points of interest
Xú Tiānlín’s preface contains a small but consequential error: he speaks of Liú Zhāo’s commentary as supplementing Fàn Yè, when in fact Liú Zhāo commented on Sīmǎ Biāo’s Xù Hàn shū treatises. Cháo Gōngwǔ already corrected this, and the case has become a standard pedagogical illustration of how the dual transmission of the HòuHànshū corpus (FànYè text + SīmǎBiāo treatises) can confuse even careful Sòng scholars.