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御批續資治通鑑綱目

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Text ID
KR2o0022
Date
1476–1782
Dynasty
明

Yùpī Xù Zīzhì tōngjiàn gāngmù 御批續資治通鑑綱目

The Imperially Annotated Tongjian Gangmu, Continued

by 商輅 (Shāng Lù, 1414–1486), with elucidations (fāmíng 發明) by 周禮 (Zhōu Lǐ, Míng) and broad explications (guǎngyì 廣義) by 張時泰 (Zhāng Shítài, Míng), with annotations (pī 批) by 聖祖 (Qīng Shèngzǔ / Kāngxī)

About the work

The Xù biān (continued compilation) of the Tōngjiàn gāngmù, covering the Sòng and Yuán dynasties from where Zhū Xī’s main Gāngmù leaves off (the end of the Five Dynasties) down to the fall of the Yuán in 1368. Compiled by Shāng Lù — the only completed Míng sānyuán zhuàngyuán (top finisher in all three civil-service examinations of Zhèngtǒng 10, 1445) and senior Míng Grand Secretary — under Hóngzhī precedent in the Chénghuà era, with elucidatory commentaries by Zhōu Lǐ (Fāmíng 發明) and Zhāng Shítài (Guǎngyì 廣義). The Kāngxī imperial annotations cover Chén Rénxī’s late-Míng reissue.

The work is the most criticised of the WYG Gāngmù-tradition texts. The Sìkù tiyao describes it as “rather full of contradictions and lacunae” (pō duō chuǎn lòu 頗多舛漏) — most notoriously, in the account of the Liùhé 六合 battle (1356), the Yuán-aligned account misnames the troops of the future Míng Tàizǔ (Zhū Yuánzhāng) as “rebel troops” (zéi bīng 賊兵), an error the Sìkù tiyao calls “a laughing-stock for the ages.” In Qiánlóng rényín (47, 1782), the Qiánlóng emperor personally composed a critical title-essay (tící 題詞) flagging this and other errors of the Xù biān, and ordered the court ministers to take up the text and emend it carefully — i.e., a second imperial intervention layered on top of the Kāngxī annotations.

Tiyao

(See joint tiyao under KR2o0020; the Xù biān portion: “As to Shāng Lù et al.’s Tōngjiàn gāngmù xù biān, basing itself on Zhū Zǐ’s fánlì, it records the affairs of the Sòng and Yuán dynasties — but is rather full of contradictions and lacunae. The Liùhé-battle account misnames the Míng Tàizǔ’s troops as rebel troops, becoming a laughing-stock for the ages. After this, Zhōu Lǐ wrote a Fāmíng; Zhāng Shítài a Guǎngyì — appended under the entries. Their absurdities are too many to list. Through Chén Rénxī’s reprint along with the main Gāngmù, this too came under the imperial-annotation procedure, and was set apart with a separate critique. In Qiánlóng rényín (1782), our reigning emperor wrote his title-poem, correcting its perverse and misguided errors, dispelling falsehood and transmitting the true; further commanded the court ministers to take up the book and revise it in detail, settling it according to the high public good. Especially fit for transmission to the ages — a guide for the historical reader.“)

Abstract

Shāng Lù (1414–1486) was a leading Míng mid-century Grand Secretary, the only completed Míng sānyuán zhuàngyuán, and a moderate-reformist opponent of the eunuch faction in the Chénghuà era (1465–87). His political profile included service through the Tǔmù crisis (1449) and the Duómén restoration (1457), and the famous impeachment of the Western Depot eunuch Wāng Zhí 汪直 in 1477. Reaching the Senior Grand Secretary position, he led the Wǔchángshēng 五常生 reform circle and retired in Chénghuà 13 (1477).

The Xù biān belongs to his late retirement period, c. 1476 onward (the work was prefaced by Shāng in Chénghuà 12, 1476). The catalog meta records persons in the order: Shāng Lù (zhuàn 撰), Zhōu Lǐ (fāmíng 發明), Zhāng Shítài (guǎngyì 廣義), and the Kāngxī emperor (pī 批) — corresponding to four successive editorial layers spanning three centuries. CBDB has no firm dates for Zhōu Lǐ or Zhāng Shítài; both are Chénghuà-Hóngzhì-era WùZhē scholars from the Shāng Lù circle.

The work’s most embarrassing failure — the misidentification of Míng Tàizǔ’s army as “rebels” at Liùhé in 1356 — reflects the editorial decision to treat the late-Yuán insurgency neutrally; the Sìkù editors are scathing about this, and the Qiánlóng emperor’s 1782 tící personally takes the work to task. Other points of Xù biān error catalogued in the Sìkù and in modern Chinese scholarship include misdatings of major SòngYuán transition events, conflation of late-Sòng resistance figures, and inconsistent application of the Gāngmù writing-conventions to non-Hàn dynasties.

Despite these failings, the Xù biān held official status as the late-Míng / Qing standard sequel to Zhū Xī’s main Gāngmù, and was the principal teaching-text for SòngYuán dynastic history in late-imperial Chinese curricula. The Kāngxī annotations (1708) and Qiánlóng’s 1782 critical revision together constitute a layered imperial intervention into the most-read, least-reliable Gāngmù text.

Translations and research

No complete English translation located.

  • Achim Mittag, “Die Tongjian-Tradition in der Yuan- und Ming-Zeit”, in Geschichtsschreibung im Vergleich, ed. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991).
  • Yáng Yàn-qiū 楊豔秋, Míngdài shǐxué shǐ 明代史學史 (Tiānjīn rénmín, 1993), Ch. 6 on Shāng Lù.
  • Cài Měibiāo 蔡美彪, “Xù Tōngjiàn gāngmù xiūzuǎn kǎo” 《續通鑑綱目》修纂考, Wénshǐ 文史 (1990).
  • Wang Yi-tong, Official Relations Between China and Japan, 1368–1549 (Harvard, 1953), passim, on Shāng Lù’s diplomatic memorials.
  • Charles Hucker, The Censorial System of Ming China (Stanford, 1966), passim.

Other points of interest

The Xù biān’s editorial history exemplifies the late-imperial layered-text tradition at its most elaborate: a Míng-Confucian moralising compilation, two Míng commentary layers, a Qing imperial annotation layer, and a second Qing imperial critical-revision layer — four centuries of corrective intervention on a single text, each layer trying to bring the next layer’s distortions into view. The Qiánlóng 1782 tící is one of the more candid imperial admissions that an imperially-favoured text was substantively flawed; it represents an unusual case of a Qing emperor publicly correcting his predecessor’s editorial choice.

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