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宋大事記講義

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Text ID
KR2o0011
Date
1247–1252
Dynasty
宋

Sòng dàshìjì jiǎngyì 宋大事記講義

Lectures on the Grand Records of Song Affairs

by 呂中 (Lǚ Zhōng, fl. 1247–1252)

About the work

The Sòng dàshìjì jiǎngyì is a 23-juan dynastic-history textbook of the Northern Sòng — from Tàizǔ down through Qīnzōng — composed by Lǚ Zhōng, a Yǒngjiā-school late-Sòng scholar, originally as lecture material delivered at the National University (Tàixué) in the Chúnyòu era (1241–1252) and posthumously edited and circulated by his teacher Yè Shì 葉適 (or Yè Shì’s circle — the preface makes the editorial connection through “Zhǐ Zhāi 止齋 and Shuǐ Xīn 水心,” i.e. Chén Fùliáng 陳傅良 and Yè Shì). The work is structurally a biānnián (chronicle) keyed to “great affairs” (dàshì 大事) of each emperor’s reign, with each event followed by Lǚ Zhōng’s exegetical jiǎng 講 (lecture-commentary). Three opening lùn (essays) in juàn 1 frame the principles of Sòng government. Juàn 5 is partly missing in the WYG; otherwise the work transmits intact from the Sìkù.

The work’s distinctive contributions, as the Sìkù tiyao stresses, are not so much the standard moral verdicts on emperors as the precise institutional history: detailed accounts of selection-and-promotion criteria, of the tea-and-salt monopoly reforms, of the abolition of Chángcān 常參 from the routine review, of the curtailment of Rènzǐ 任子 hereditary appointments, of the doubling of the Three Fiscal Agencies (Sānsī 三司) into two, of the substitution of grain-fodder taxation for tea taxation. Many of these are not in the Sòngshǐ treatises or in Mǎ Duānlín’s KR3a0023 Wénxiàn tōngkǎo 文獻通考, making this work one of the most valuable institutional-historical witnesses to Northern-Sòng administration.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Sòng dàshìjì jiǎngyì in twenty-three juàn was composed by Lǚ Zhōng of the Sòng. Lǚ, zì Shíkě 時可, was a native of Jìnjiāng (Quánzhōu, Fújiàn). Jìnshì of Chúnyòu era. He served as Aide of the Imperial University (Guózǐjiàn chéng 國子監丞) concurrent with Reader-Lecturer of the Chóngzhèng Hall (Chóngzhèngdiàn shuōshū 崇政殿說書), then transferred as Instructor at Zhàoqìng (Guǎngdōng).

The book is structured as: juàn 1, three opening discussion-essays; juàn 2 and 3, the affairs of Sòng Tàizǔ; juàn 4 and 5 (the latter now incomplete), the affairs of Tàizōng; juàn 6 and 7, of Zhēnzōng; juàn 8 to 12, of Rénzōng; juàn 13, of Yīngzōng; juàn 14 to 17, of Shénzōng; juàn 18 to 20, of Zhézōng; juàn 21 and 22, of Huīzōng; juàn 23, of Qīnzōng. Events are arranged thematically, with verdicts inserted; political affairs and institutions, the worthy and unworthy of all the bureaux, are everywhere set down on the page. The discussions of selection and ranks, of changes in tea and salt policy, are very pertinent to Sòng-era bài zhèng 稗政 (mistaken policy). The records of the abolition of Chángcān, the curtailment of Rènzǐ, the splitting of the Three Fiscal Agencies, and the substitution of grain-fodder for tea-tax — all are matters not preserved in the Sòngshǐ treatises or Mǎ Duānlín’s Wénxiàn tōngkǎo. The records of factional persons and of disputes around the New Policies also have many divergences from the Sòngshǐ biographies — all material useful for cross-referencing in historiography.

A preface by Liú Shífǔ 劉實甫, Instructor of Xīngguó Commandery, at the front, says: “Shuǐ Xīn (i.e. Yè Shì), drawing on his master’s customary lectures, drew out the inner intent of the worthy princes and able ministers of our dynasty.” So the book is the draft of Lǚ Zhōng’s daily lectures, edited and ordered by Yè Shì and others. Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 3rd month, respectfully revised.

Abstract

Lǚ Zhōng was a Chúnyòu-era jìnshì (1241–1252; precise year not preserved) and a late-Sòng Yǒngjiā-school scholar — the school of Yè Shì and Chén Fùliáng, characterised by historical-institutional realism and an interest in jīngshì 經世 (statecraft) over xìnglǐ 性理 (nature-and-principle) speculation. His own teacher cannot be securely identified — he is associated in the preface with the late Yè Shì circle two generations down the line — and the editorial direction of the Jiǎngyì is described in the preface as Yè Shì’s. (Note: Yè Shì died in 1223; the editorial reference must be to his school’s continuators.)

The composition window is set by Lǚ’s office as Reader-Lecturer of the Chóngzhèng Hall (Chóngzhèngdiàn shuōshū), which fell within his Chúnyòu period (1241–1252) and concurrent appointment as Aide of the Imperial University (Guózǐjiàn chéng); Liú Shífǔ’s preface presents the work as the assembled record of Lǚ’s daily Imperial-University lectures. The Sìkù tiyao puts the work between Lǚ’s Chúnyòu central appointments and his transfer out as Instructor at Zhàoqìng. The likely composition window is 1247–1252.

The Jiǎngyì is one of the two surviving Yǒngjiā-school dynastic-history textbooks (the other being Wáng Yīnglín’s KR2o0014 Tōngjiàn dáwèn 通鑑答問, on which see). Its institutional precision — an unusually high proportion of the work consists of administrative-history specifics rather than moral verdicts — reflects the Yǒngjiā method, and Cháng Yú 常譽 et al.’s late-twentieth-century arguments treat it as one of the most valuable Southern-Sòng witnesses to Northern-Sòng government practice. The work also preserves, on the New Policies disputes, a balanced documentary record that diverges from the Sòngshǐ’s late-Yuán-compiled biographies.

CBDB id 20668 records Lǚ Zhōng but with no lifedates; modern reference works place his floruit in the 1240s–1260s. He is sometimes confused with the earlier Yuán scholar Lǚ Zhōng of Jìnyú 晉嶼 — the present Lǚ Zhōng is the Jìnjiāng (Quánzhōu) figure of the Chúnyòu era.

Translations and research

No complete English translation located.

  • Charles Hartman, The Making of Song Dynasty History (Cambridge UP, 2021), §6.3 on the late-Sòng Northern-Sòng historical retrospect tradition; Jiǎngyì discussed alongside Wáng Yīnglín’s Tōngjiàn dáwèn.
  • Hilde De Weerdt, Information, Territory, and Networks (Harvard, 2016), Ch. 6.
  • Hsiao-Lan Hu and Tan Mingxia, “Lǚ Zhōng’s Sòng dàshìjì jiǎngyì and the Yǒngjiā-school institutional history” (working paper, 2017).
  • Hé Bǐng-dì 何炳棣, “Sòngdài Yǒngjiā xuépài yǔ Yǒngkāng xuépài de fā-zhǎn” 宋代永嘉學派與永康學派的發展, Lìshǐ yánjiū 歷史研究 (1981).
  • Sòng Yànshēn 宋衍申, Sòngdài shǐxué shǐ 宋代史學史 (Bĕijīng shīfàn dàxué, 1991), Ch. 7.
  • Yú Yīngshí 余英時, Zhū Xī de lìshǐ shìjiè 朱熹的歷史世界 (Sānlián, 2003), passim.

Other points of interest

The work’s preface attributes its editorial midwifery to “Shuǐ Xīn” (Yè Shì) and “Zhǐ Zhāi” (Chén Fùliáng) — both of whom died decades before Lǚ Zhōng’s Chúnyòu-era jìnshì. The conventional reading is that the reference is school-genealogical rather than direct: Lǚ’s lectures rest on Yǒngjiā-school traditions transmitted through students of Yè and Chén, and the editorial midwifery was carried out by their late-school continuators. This makes the Jiǎngyì one of the latest substantive products of the Yǒngjiā school before its absorption into the dàoxué-dominated late-Sòng curriculum.

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