Qīndìng Dà Qīng Huìdiǎn 欽定大清會典
Imperially Authorized Collected Statutes of the Great Qīng by 允祹 (奉敕撰)
About the work
The third (Qiánlóng) recension of the Dà Qīng Huìdiǎn, completed in Qiánlóng 29 (1764) under the directorship of the imperial prince Yùntáo 允祹 (the Lǚ-prince Yìnyíng’s eldest surviving brother). The earlier recensions—Kāngxī 33 (1694) and Yōngzhèng 5 (1727)—each consisted of a single combined corpus interleaving statutes and case-precedents (zélì); the Qiánlóng reform separated them into two paired works, the Huìdiǎn proper (this work, 100 juǎn) presenting the framework of administrative law, and the Huìdiǎn zélì (KR2m0013, 180 juǎn) presenting the supporting case-precedents and historical evolution. This is the standard editorial structure subsequently adopted in the Jiāqìng and Guāngxù recensions.
Tiyao
By imperial command of Qiánlóng 29 (1764). The Qīng Huìdiǎn was first compiled in Kāngxī 33 (1694), continued in Yōngzhèng 5 (1727), and now thrice redacted, its statutes more complete and its sub-headings more detailed than ever. Anciently the Western Zhōu organized administrative responsibility under six chief officers (Liù guān); the Zhōu lǐ gathers all under their headings—the great pivot of sage governance. After thousands of years, circumstances differ, decrees must be added, statutes amended, responsibilities reapportioned: one cannot continue confined to the same six headings. Yet the principle “the office holds the affair, the affair belongs to the office”—this is the unalterable great regularity through all time.
Hence the works of successive dynasties—the Táng Liù diǎn, the Yuán Diǎnzhāng, the Míng Huìdiǎn—each have their additions and deletions, but their grand framework and major divisions are not far apart. But whether such a book is good or not depends not only on its compilation but on whether the regulations themselves are sound. A dynasty’s huìdiǎn records that dynasty’s actual practice: what is in the practice cannot be omitted; what is not in the practice cannot be invented. Where the practice is good or not, the compiler cannot tamper. Hence the Táng Liù diǎn lists “auspicious omens” in three categories for memorial-submission—a system encouraging mutual deception between high and low—but the recorder of the day could not but record it. Likewise the Zhìzhèng tiáogé contains lopsided unjust ordinances, criticized by imperial title-rubric in the work itself, recognized by all as wrong, but recorded because they were then in force. When government is full of malpractice, no wonder the records are full of disputed text.
The Zhōu lǐ, which Zhū Xī called “watertight” (shèng shuǐ bù lòu 盛水不漏), was so because Western-Zhōu rule was directed in every detail to opening tàipíng for ten thousand generations; thus the book has been transmitted as a model. The Duke of Zhōu added no varnish. Our House, sage-emperors successively, has accumulated civil and martial glory beyond bound. Our August Emperor, holding both ends and finding the mean, makes adjustments according to the times—his expansions and reductions all suited, all accordant. Hence this work, in elegance of structure and clarity of organization, fully equals the Zhōu lǐ—truly a sage’s grand design surpassing the Zhōu in FēngHào. The records of past dynasties cannot approach its shores.
Abstract
The third Qīng Huìdiǎn is the founding example of the bipartite Huìdiǎn + Zélì structure. Compilation began under Yōngzhèng’s death-year successor and was carried through under Qiánlóng’s grand-secretarial directorate, with the imperial prince Yùntáo (1685–1763, posthumously) as the nominal director. The 100-juǎn main text presents the dynasty’s administrative law in its synchronic state c. 1764: the Six Boards plus Lǐfānyuàn (Court of Tributary Affairs) plus the Dūcháyuàn (Censorate) and the various supervisory and academic agencies, each with its complement of bureaus, posts, and protocols.
The split between huìdiǎn (statutes) and zélì (case precedents) reflects an editorial principle the Sìkù tíyào defends explicitly: in the Zhōu lǐ, the Six Officers’ record is summary and the detail is in supplementary archives; the present arrangement, by paralleling Huìdiǎn and Zélì, restores that ancient logic. Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual, §66.4.6.1) treats the five Qīng Huìdiǎn (1684, 1727, 1764, 1818, 1899) as the principal source for the Qīng administrative system; the 1764 recension is the second-largest and the structural blueprint for the rest.
Translations and research
Standard punctuated edition: the Wényuāngé recension is the Sìkù version. For the later Guāngxù recension, the modern reprint is Qīn-dìng Dà Qīng Huìdiǎn / Huìdiǎn shìlì (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1991). Western-language scholarship treating the 1764 Huìdiǎn directly: Beatrice Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch’ing China, 1723–1820 (Univ. of California, 1991); Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing (Norton, 1999); R. Kent Guy, Qing Governors and Their Provinces (Univ. of Washington Press, 2010). Chinese: Liú Yǎn 劉硯, Qīng-dài Huìdiǎn yánjiū 清代會典研究 (Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué, 2018), is the principal modern monograph.
Other points of interest
Yùntáo 允祹 (Aisin-Gioro Yintao 胤祹), the Lǚ-prince, was Kāngxī’s twelfth son and the longest-lived of his brothers; he survived three of his nephew Qiánlóng’s recensions in nominal director-of-compilation roles. He died in 1763, before the work’s formal presentation in 1764—the work nonetheless retains him as principal compiler. The dating notBefore=notAfter=1764 reflects the conventional date of completion.