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三國雜事

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Text ID
KR2o0007
Date
1109–1110
Dynasty
宋

Sānguó záshì 三國雜事

Miscellaneous Discussions of the Three Kingdoms

by 唐庚 (Táng Gēng, 1071–1121)

About the work

The Sānguó záshì is a 2-juan set of 36 essays on Three Kingdoms history, prefaced by Táng Gēng’s own preface, written during his Huìzhōu exile (1109–c. 1116). The work’s most striking opening move — preserved in the surviving preface — is its frontal attack on Chén Shòu’s 陳壽 KR2j0006 Sānguó zhì 三國志 for naming the LiúBèi régime “Shǔ” 蜀 rather than “Hàn” 漢: Táng Gēng argues that Chén Shòu’s choice was a WèiJìn party-line trick, smuggling the Cáo / Sīmǎ position past the historian’s professional duty, and that the surviving five dynasties’ historians (e.g. Ōuyáng Xiū’s KR2a0023 Xīn Wǔdàishǐ 新五代史) had since corrected the precedent — only Chén Shòu had not been corrected. The work was originally absorbed into Táng Gēng’s collected essays (Méishān jí 眉山集 / Méishān xiānshēng wénjí 眉山先生文集) and only re-extracted into separate two-juan circulation in the late Sòng or Yuán; the Sìkù editors restored it from a Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recension and from the Tiānyīgé 天一閣 manuscript.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Sānguó záshì in two juàn was composed by Táng Gēng of the Sòng. Táng, zì Zǐxī 子西, was a native of Dānléng 丹稜 in Méizhōu (Sìchuān). He was promoted jìnshì in the Shàoshèng era (1094–98); served as Recorder in the Office of Punishments at Lìzhōu, then Magistrate of Lángzhōng; entered the capital as Erudite of the Imperial Clansmen’s School (Zōngxué bóshì 宗學博士). On the recommendation of Zhāng Shāngyīng 張商英 he was appointed Inspector of Equitable Levies for Jīngxī (Tíjǔ Jīngxī chángpíng 提舉京畿常平); later, on Zhāng’s fall, he was implicated for a fù 賦 (rhapsody) celebrating Zhāng (Nèi qián xíng 內前行) and demoted to internal exile in Huìzhōu. In Dàguān 5 (1111) he was pardoned and died on the road home. His career is given in the Sòngshǐ “Wényuàn” (Literary Worthies) section.

This book is a miscellany on Three-Kingdoms matters, in 36 sections plus the author’s own preface. Later compilers all incorporated it into Táng’s collected works. Examining the Sòng Yìwénzhì, which records Táng’s jí in 22 juàn, the present count agrees — so this work was originally in the collection. But Cháo Gōngwǔ and Chén Zhènsūn both record Táng’s jí in 10 juàn — so the present 22-juan total reflects a split of one of the original 10 juàn into two, and an addition of this work as 2 juàn extra; not the original. The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn citations also list this work as a separate compilation, not under the jí heading. We therefore restore it as a separate 2-juan work, returning to the older form. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí says Táng’s prose is strong in disputation. On reading him here, the discussions on Zhūgě Liàng’s lenient handling of Fǎ Zhèng 法正, on the change of reign-title not waiting a full year, and on Xún Yù’s 荀彧 disputing the Nine Bestowals to Cáo Cāo, all run deliberately counter to the received view. As to Liàng’s accord with Wú — basically a measure of expediency, but here held up as the orthodox royal Way — and Liàng’s relocation of the Western County’s thousand-odd families — basically a pacification, but here held to be a vexation of innocents — these are not in line with reason. He also says the Shāng dynasty had no “jiànchǒu (raising-the-second-month) calendar” rule; that the Zhāngyè stone-pictures are the Héluò writings, regretting that there was no Fú Xī or Shén Nóng to recognise them — these are particularly absurd. Yet his other discussions are mostly worth taking up; the pure and the polluted stand together, and the gem and the flaw do not eclipse one another. The reader of high arguments can extract what is good. Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 2nd month, respectfully revised.

Abstract

Táng Gēng was one of the most distinguished prose stylists of the late Northern Sòng — he was nicknamed Xiǎo Sū 小蘇 (“little Sū”, i.e. the second Sū Dōngpō) for his prose, and Sū Shì himself, in the WāngTóu period, recommended him to the literary establishment. Jìnshì of Shàoshèng 1 (1094); his career thereafter was largely shaped by his patron Zhāng Shāngyīng 張商英 (1043–1121). On Zhāng’s appointment as chief minister in the Dàguān era, Táng was promoted to the Inspector of Equitable Levies; on Zhāng’s fall in 1110, Táng was implicated through a celebratory fù and exiled to Huìzhōu — the same exile destination as Sū Shì a generation earlier — where he wrote the Sānguó záshì and his Méishān jí prose collection. Pardoned in 1111, he died en route home in 1121.

The Sānguó záshì is a Northern-Sòng landmark in the long pre-history of the SòngYuánMíng ShǔHàn legitimacy (蜀漢正統) debate. Táng’s preface (the cleanest surviving statement of his position) frames the issue as a historian’s professional duty: every other dynastic history names the régimes it covers by their self-proclaimed national title, including the Wǔdài shǐ’s naming of Lǐ Jǐng’s “Southern Táng” and Liú Chóng’s “Eastern Hàn”; only Chén Shòu refused to use Liú Bèi’s chosen title 漢 and forced on the régime the Wèi-Jìn-courtroom slur 蜀. Táng treats this as an ideological corruption that compromises everything else in the Sānguó zhì. He reports a striking anecdote from his own time: when Ōuyáng Xiū was at work on the Wǔdài shǐ, Wáng Ānshí said to him, “There is nothing in the Five Dynasties worth troubling yourself over; in the Three Kingdoms, on the contrary, there is much that is delightful — all of it ruined by Chén Shòu. Could you not redo it?” — Ōuyáng agreed in principle but never had time. Táng presents his own work as the partial fulfilment of that suggestion.

The 36 essays range across Liú Bèi’s accession; Zhūgě Liàng’s leniency toward Fǎ Zhèng (where Táng dissents from the received Sòng-Confucian view); the WúShǔ alliance (treated as orthodox); the Nine Bestowals to Cáo Cāo (where Táng defends Xún Yù’s resistance more strongly than Chén Shòu); calendrical and ritual minutiae of the Shāng — and a notorious aside speculating that the Zhāngyè stone-pictures of post-Hàn lore are the HétúLuòshū (Yellow River and Luò Writings) of high antiquity, “preserved without a Fú Xī or Shén Nóng to identify them.” The Sìkù tiyao calls these last gestures absurd, but registers the broader value of the work as historical-critical prose.

The work prefigures Zhū Xī’s KR2o0020 Tōngjiàn gāngmù on the ShǔHàn legitimacy point by a full century, and is one of the principal Northern Sòng witnesses (alongside Liú Shù’s recorded but unsuccessful argument inside the Tōngjiàn bureau, preserved in KR2o0006 Tōngjiàn wènyí) to the existence of a serious Hàn-legitimacy school well before the Southern Sòng dàoxué synthesis. CBDB id 1598 confirms Táng Gēng’s lifedates as 1071–1121.

Translations and research

No complete English translation located.

  • Charles Hartman, The Making of Song Dynasty History (Cambridge UP, 2021), §3.7 on Táng Gēng’s place in the late-Northern-Sòng essay tradition.
  • Hilde De Weerdt, Information, Territory, and Networks (Harvard, 2016), Ch. 6 on the Northern Sòng pre-history of the zhèngtǒng (legitimate succession) debate.
  • Sòng Yànshēn 宋衍申, Sòngdài shǐxué shǐ 宋代史學史 (Bĕijīng shīfàn dàxué, 1991).
  • Wáng Lì 王立, “Táng Gēng Sānguó záshì yǔ Sòngdài Shǔ-Hàn zhèngtǒng-lùn” 唐庚《三國雜事》與宋代蜀漢正統論, Sìchuān shīfàn dàxué xuébào 四川師範大學學報 (2007).
  • Lǐ Yuěshàn 李越善, Méishān xiānshēng nián pǔ 眉山先生年譜 (in Sòngdài rénwù niánpǔ huìbiān 宋代人物年譜彙編).

Other points of interest

The two anecdotes Táng records — Wáng Ānshí’s verdict on the Sānguó zhì and Wáng’s challenge to Ōuyáng Xiū to rewrite it — are quoted extensively in the Yuán and Míng disputes over the Three Kingdoms (e.g. in Tōngjiàn gāngmù fā fán 通鑑綱目發凡 prefatory matter), and through them shape the late-imperial reception of the period. Táng’s own posthumous canonisation in the late Northern Sòng as Méishān xiānshēng 眉山先生 also helped insulate his early-twelfth-century prose from the Yuányòu / Shàoshèng factional partition that dimmed many of his contemporaries’ reputations.

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