Qīguó Kǎo 七國考
Investigation of the Seven Kingdoms by 董說 (撰)
About the work
A retrospective topical reconstruction of the institutions of the seven Warring States kingdoms—Qín, Qí, Chǔ, Zhào, Hán, Wèi, Yān—by the late-Míng / early-Qīng polymath Dǒng Yuè 董說 (1620–1686). Modeled loosely on the huìyào genre, the work distributes the surviving evidence under fourteen subject-heads (offices, finances, capitals, palaces, state names, qún rituals, music, vessels and dress, miscellaneous records, mourning system, military system, criminal law, calamities and portents, minor signs). Sources are primarily the Zhànguó cè and Shǐjì, supplemented from the philosophical zǐ literature, miscellaneous histories, the Lièxiān zhuàn, Gǎnyìng lèi cóngzhì, Zǐhuázǐ, Shíyíjì, etc. As Wilkinson observes, this is the principal antiquarian huìyào for the Warring States.
Tiyao
By Dǒng Yuè of the Míng. Yuè’s Yìfā 易發 has been catalogued separately. This work treats the institutions of the seven kingdoms—Qín, Qí, Chǔ, Zhào, Hán, Wèi, Yān—divided into fourteen gates: offices, finance, capitals, palaces, state names, qún rituals, music, vessels and dress, miscellaneous records, mourning, military, penal law, calamities and portents, minor signs. Material is gathered from various works to corroborate one another, in the rough manner of a huìyào. The principal sources are the Zhànguó cè and Shǐjì, supplemented by the zǐ and miscellaneous histories. Among the cited works are Liú Xiàng’s Lièxiān zhuàn, Zhāng Huá’s Gǎnyìng lèi cóngzhì, Zǐhuázǐ, Fúzǐ, Wáng Jiā’s Shíyíjì—some literary fictions, others miscellaneous fictional anecdotes—all treated as authoritative. The Yuèlìng mention of Tàiwèi and Dàqiú offices, which the commentators expressly identify as Qín offices, is on the other hand omitted. The work is uneven in selection.
Although titled Seven Kingdoms, it should begin only after the partition of Jìn. Yet for Qín it cites the Chēlín poem [from the Shī, on Qín retainers]; for Chǔ it draws “Two Brigades” (liǎngguǎng) from the Zuǒ zhuàn—out of period. The Xīnxù records that the King of Wèi wished to build a “Mid-Heaven Tower,” from which Xǔ Guǎn dissuaded him; the work is uncertain, and even if the project was discussed it was not built. Yet under the Wèi palace gate, an entry “Zhōngtiān tái 中天臺” appears as if real. The Zhuāngzǐ mentions “no marshalled cranes by the Lìqiáo” 麗譙; Lìqiáo is a generic term for city watchtowers, not unique to Wèi. Yet under Wèi palaces, Lìqiáo is given a separate entry. The Qíncāo records that the Hán killed Niè Zhèng’s father—but execution was an ancient and universal practice, not a Hán innovation. Yet under Hán penal law, “Shā 殺” appears as a distinct entry; this is filling out the volumes. The “Qín water-heart sword” (shuǐxīn jiàn 水心劍) story is from the Xù Qíxié jì, not the Bái tiè as Dǒng claims. The “Qín lodging Lord Jìn at the Língtái” is from the Zuǒ zhuàn, not the Lièn̆ǚ zhuàn. Source-citations are often misattributed. The work has neither preface nor postface, and the Qí-officials gate has a note “with appended consorts,” but the consorts are missing—suggesting the work survives only as a draft, perhaps copied posthumously.
Even so: the institutions of pre-Qín times can be checked in the classics; those of the QínHàn and after, in the standard histories. Only for the two centuries of warring intrigue between the Six States is the institutional record nearly impossible to recover. Dǒng’s collation of the scattered evidence at least produces a sketch of the lost outline, giving the antiquarian something to work with. Even if it is sometimes overgrown with material, it is to be preserved.
Abstract
A unique work in its genre—the only systematic attempt to reconstruct Warring-States institutions topically before the Qīng kǎojù movement. Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual, §51.1, Box 263) places it among the principal antiquarian huìyào. The work is undated; Dǒng Yuè’s life-dates 1620–1686 (CBDB) bracket it, with internal evidence (no allusion to Qīng-dynasty events, the Sìkù editors’ inference that the work is unfinished) suggesting late-Míng to Shùnzhì compilation. The dating bracket here reflects Dǒng’s adult years.
Dǒng Yuè was a Buddhist-influenced literatus best known to Western readers as the author of the lost-self novel Xī yóu bǔ 西遊補 (Supplement to the Journey to the West); he is also a Cháo-school philological commentator. The Sìkù editors’ diagnosis that the Qīguó kǎo survives only as a draft is plausible: the headings sometimes promise material that is missing (e.g., consorts under the Qí offices), suggesting an incompletely cleaned manuscript was preserved by descendants and copied without revision.
The standard punctuated edition is the 1956 Zhōnghuá shūjú printing in the Zhōngguó shǐxué cóngshū; the same edition was reissued in 1978 with corrections by Cuī Hào 崔灝.
Translations and research
Standard punctuated edition: Qīguó kǎo 七國考, Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1956 (in Scripta Sinica). The most authoritative critical edition is Miāo Wényuǎn 繆文遠, Qīguó kǎo dìngbǔ 七國考訂補 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1987), which collates the work against modern Warring-States archaeological discoveries (Yúnmèng Shuìhǔdì bamboo strips, etc.) and corrects many of Dǒng’s source-attribution errors. Western scholarship: Mark Edward Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China (SUNY Press, 1990), and Yúrí Pínes, Foundations of Confucian Thought (Univ. Hawai’i Press, 2002), both make occasional use of the work. Major studies on Dǒng Yuè as a polymath include those by Frederick Brandauer, Tung Yüeh (1620–1686): An Eccentric Scholar Reaching Out (Boston: Twayne, 1980).
Other points of interest
The bibliographic curiosity that the Qīguó kǎo lacks both preface and postface and contains internal markers of an unfinished state (the empty “consorts” sub-entry under Qí, miscited source attributions) is preserved in the Sìkù editors’ tíyào and remains visible in modern editions. Miāo Wényuǎn’s 1987 dìngbǔ edition is the standard tool for filling in these lacunae using post-Dǒng Warring-States scholarship.