Dà Jīn Déyùn Túshuō 大金德運圖說
Diagrammatic Discussion of the Great Jīn’s Cyclical Power by 闕名 (撰)
About the work
A Jīn-dynasty Department-of-State-Affairs (Shàngshūshěng) dossier preserving the deliberations of a 1214 court committee on the Jīn dynasty’s déyùn 德運—its Five-Phases dynastic-element classification. Originally the Jīn favored White (Metal); in Tàihé 2 (1202) Zhāngzōng changed the déyùn to Earth. In Zhēnyòu 2 (1214), Xuānzōng commissioned a re-deliberation. This 1-juǎn file preserves the full set of memorials: 22 deliberating officials’ names; 14 individual memorials supporting Metal, 4 supporting Earth; the 4 who deliberated but produced no memorials; the Shàngshūshěng judgment; and so forth. It is preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and reconstituted by the Sìkù editors.
Tiyao
A file of the Jīn Shàngshūshěng deliberation on the déyùn. According to the Jīn shǐ annals, in early Jīn the favored color was white (i.e., jīn metal); in Tàihé 2, eleventh month, Zhāngzōng revised the déyùn to Earth, in the twelfth month chén day; the order was promulgated. In Zhēnyòu 2, first month, Xuānzōng commanded the responsible officials to re-deliberate. This is what the work records.
The book opens with the Shàngshūshěng judgment (pàn), then the office-cabinet’s letter, then the names of the 22 deliberating officials. Six produced individual memorials, eight produced co-signed memorials, four signed without comment, four are listed as deliberating but produced no memorial: Tàizǐ tàifù Zhāng Xíngjiǎn, Tàizǐ tàibǎo Fùchá Wūyè (originally written Púchá Wèiyě; corrected here), Xiūzhuàn Fùzhūlǐ Ālā (originally written Bèishùlǔ Ālā; corrected here), and Fèimí Āndádēng (originally written Péimǎn Àndàidīng; corrected here)—suggesting the original work has further losses.
The deliberation: 4 officials supported Earth, 14 supported Metal. Among the latter is the Remonstrance-Officer Jiànyì dàfū Zhāng Xíngxìn, who urged Metal vigorously. But Zhāng’s Jīnshǐ biography records that in Zhēnyòu 4 (1216), when Wáng Kuài proposed Fire, Zhāng argued for Earth and dismissed Wáng’s proposal as reckless. Zhāng’s positions before and after contradict each other—incomprehensible.
The volume contains only the officials’ deliberations; the Shàngshūshěng never registers any decision. The history records that in Xīngdìng 1 (1217), twelfth month gēngchén day, the là sacrifice was offered at the ancestral temple; that is, throughout the rest of the Jīn, the Tàihé-period determination of Earth remained, no further change. Probably that very year (1214) the Yuán armies invaded deeply, Xuānzōng fled south to Biànliáng, and the deliberation was abandoned; hence the Shàngshūshěng never produced an order.
The Five-Phases sequence is not in the Six Classics; it appears only in the Jiā yǔ (Kǒngzǐ jiā yǔ), which is a Wáng Sù forgery and cannot be authoritative. Later ages, mired in the doctrine, expanded it elaborately and forced syncretic readings. Our August Emperor has corrected the matter, dispelled the false and the suspect, restoring the principle of “dwelling in the centre and grasping the great” and breaking the prophecy-and-portent fallacy—a definitive ruling for ten thousand ages. This work cannot supply such a beginning-and-end, but the file is preserved as a supplement to administrative history. The deliberations themselves are partial and insular and would not be worth recording, but the historical record is brief, and the imperial composition (Qiánlóng’s edict on the déyùn doctrine) has been entered at the head of the volume so that all of later ages may know that Zōu Yǎn and his successors all spun fabricated readings—removing the confusion of the misguided sect.
Abstract
A unique documentary survival from the Jīn court: a Shàngshūshěng deliberation file preserved through the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and reconstituted by the Sìkù editors. Dating: the deliberation took place in Zhēnyòu 2 (1214); both notBefore and notAfter are 1214. The document captures the moment when the Jīn court, facing the Mongol invasion, attempted unsuccessfully to re-establish dynastic legitimacy through a re-classification of the déyùn—an unsuccessful project abandoned when Xuānzōng fled south.
The Manchu personal names of the four “no-memorial” deliberators have been silently corrected by the Sìkù editors using contemporary Manchu transliteration standards: Púchá Wèiyě → Fùchá Wūyè; Bèishùlǔ Ālā → Fùzhūlǐ Ālā; Péimǎn Àndàidīng → Fèimí Āndádēng. These corrections reflect the Qiánlóng-era project of standardizing non-Hàn personal names in pre-Qīng historical texts. The work as preserved in Sìkù incorporates these emendations.
The Qiánlóng emperor’s anti-déyùn edict (against the Five-Phases dynastic-classification doctrine of Zōu Yǎn 鄒衍) is here placed at the head of the volume—an unusual editorial decision that uses the déyùn file as a vehicle for the Qiánlóng court’s polemic against the entire prophecy-and-portent tradition.
Translations and research
Standard edition: Wényuāngé Sìkù. The principal modern study is Liú Pǔ-jiāng 劉浦江, Liáo Jīn shǐ lùn 遼金史論 (Sānlián, 2014), pp. 188–231, a definitive treatment of the déyùn deliberations and their political context. The work is preserved with the imperial preface in Sìkù; the déyùn file alone is reprinted (without the preface) in Cóngshū jíchéng. For the broader context of Jīn-period dynastic legitimacy claims, see Hoyt Cleveland Tillman and Stephen H. West, eds., China Under Jurchen Rule (1995).
Other points of interest
The internal contradiction between Zhāng Xíngxìn’s 1214 memorial (favoring Metal) and his Jīnshǐ-biography stance of 1216 (favoring Earth, against Wáng Kuài’s Fire) is preserved by the Sìkù editors as a textual problem—a small but interesting case of how late-Jīn court politics shifted faction-by-faction with the deteriorating military situation.