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欽定古今儲貳金鑑

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Text ID
KR2o0024
Date
1783–1783
Dynasty
清

Qīndìng gǔjīn chǔ’èr jīnjiàn 欽定古今儲貳金鑑

Imperially Decreed Golden Mirror of Crown-Prince Successions Past and Present

by 高宗弘曆 (Qīng Gāozōng / Qiánlóng) and the imperial princes, Shàngshū fáng zǒngshī Fù 上書房總師傅 et al., Jūnjī dàchén 軍機大臣

About the work

A 6-juan compilation, ordered in Qiánlóng 48 (guǐmǎo, 1783), of historical case-studies of crown-prince enthronements (chǔ’èr 儲貳, “the second-position [heir]”) from the Zhōu down to the Míng. The compilation was executed by the imperial princes (zhū huángzǐ) together with the Grand Council (Jūnjī dàchén), and the head of the Imperial Tutoring Bureau (Shàngshū fáng zǒngshī Fù 上書房總師傅 — the head tutor — in this period the Wéndìnggōng Fù Héng 傅恆 or his successor). Thirty-three principal cases plus five appended cases are organised dynasty by dynasty; pre-Chūnqiū enfeoffment cases are noted in brief side-comments rather than in the main entries, since they do not concern dynastic succession proper. The Sòng Tàidì 太弟 (Tàizōng’s succession of his elder brother Tàizǔ as the brother-heir) and the Míng Tàisūn 太孫 (Jiànwén’s succession through his deceased father) are treated in detail as exemplary problems.

The work’s polemical thrust is explicit and unusual: it is an anti-installation manual. The Qiánlóng emperor uses the historical case-studies to establish that the practice of formally installing a crown prince during the reigning emperor’s lifetime is a structural source of political instability — “petty men seize the moment to wait for trouble, and unrest follows” (xiāo xiǎo chéng jiān sì xìn, niàng wéi luàn jiē 宵小乘閒伺釁，釀為亂階). The Qing dynastic policy of bù lì chǔ 不立儲 (not formally installing a crown prince) is justified historically by this catalogue of failures. The work is therefore both a historical anthology and a doctrinal manifesto for the Qing imperial succession system.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: in Qiánlóng 48 (1783), special command was issued to the Imperial Princes, together with the Grand Councillors and the head of the Imperial Tutoring Bureau Fù 傅 et al., to take up successive dynasties’ affairs of installing crown princes — those that bear lessons to be drawn — and compile them dynasty by dynasty, from Zhōu to the late Míng, gathering 33 affairs, with 5 supplementary cases. From the Spring-and-Autumn period onwards, on the affairs of feudal-lord and prince-installation of heirs (which are not equivalent to crown-prince succession), the gist is set out in brief case-comments and not entered into the main entries. Other partial-evidence cases of installation, where there was no relation to legitimate dynastic succession, are similarly omitted. The Sòng Tàidì (Tàizōng) and the Míng Tàisūn (Jiànwéndì) are particularly important as warnings to the ages, and so receive detailed discussion.

The narrative of events is taken from the standard histories; the verdicts are drawn from the imperially-annotated Tōngjiàn gāngmù and Tōngjiàn jīlǎn. At the head of the juàn the imperial decree is respectfully recorded, like a compilation’s general rubric.

We respectfully observe: our state’s ten-thousand-year handing-down of the lineage, the sage thoughts deep and far-reaching, family-precedent observed: not to install or formally invest a crown prince. The Sage Emperor presses today’s standards against past practice, takes in fully the fallen wheels of the previous dynasties, knowing brilliantly that the matter of installing a crown prince absolutely cannot be done. Repeatedly issuing imperial admonition, deeply earnest and clear. As we read His Majesty’s Yùzhì zhíguān biǎo liánjù shī — under the entry for the Zhānshìfǔ (Crown Prince’s Household) — His Majesty wrote: “From of old the bookish Confucians’ obstinate opinion, often takes installation as the foundation of state — but in fact this is mostly self-interested calculation for their later families, with no benefit to state policy. Indeed, after the installation, petty men seize the moment to wait for an opening, brewing chaos to which there is no end of harm. I have considered this back and forth, knowing it deeply; let my sons and grandsons reverently observe this teaching, taking it as the law of ages.”

The sage instruction shines like the sun and stars; verified by the past traces recorded in this compilation, which clearly demonstrate the things to be cautioned against in former events — and one knows the sage court’s far-reaching plan, truly the central road of long-prosperity and ten-thousand-year foundation.

Abstract

The Qīndìng gǔjīn chǔ’èr jīnjiàn is one of the most explicitly political of Qiánlóng’s historiographical works: a focused historical anthology compiled to justify the Qing dynastic policy of not formally installing a crown prince during the reigning emperor’s lifetime. The compilation responds to a long-standing tension in Qing imperial succession: the standard Hàn-Confucian view (going back to the Lǐjì and Chūnqiū) held the formal installation of a crown prince to be the foundation (guó běn 國本) of dynastic stability; the Qing practice (introduced by Yōngzhèng under the cáng míng 藏名 secret-succession system, and continued by Qiánlóng) deliberately rejected this view.

The work was produced under the close supervision of the Qiánlóng emperor, with the actual compilation carried out by his sons (the imperial princes) together with the Grand Councillors and the head tutor. The use of the imperial princes as compilers is itself part of the work’s pedagogical message: the future emperor (Jiāqìng) and his brothers were learning, in the act of compiling, why their father refused to formally invest one of them as crown prince during his own lifetime.

The 33 principal cases plus 5 appended cases cover the full chronological span: Western Zhōu (the Tàibó / King Wǔ succession), Spring-and-Autumn (treated only briefly), Hàn (the lessons of Lìu Yīng’s installation under Empress Lǚ), Eastern Hàn, Three Kingdoms (Wèi Tàidì), Western and Eastern Jìn (the disastrous Sīmǎ Zhōng installation), Northern and Southern Dynasties, Suí (Yáng Yǒng → Yáng Guǎng), Táng (the Lǐ Chéngqián / Lǐ Zhì installation), Wǔ Zhōu, Sòng (Tàidì succession), Liáo, Jīn, Yuán, Míng (Tàisūn). Each entry presents the historical sequence followed by the imperial verdict on what went wrong.

The work was completed and presented in Qiánlóng 48 (1783) — a year that also saw the publication of the Sìkù main collection’s first 7-set edition. The preface preserves the emperor’s Yùzhì zhíguān biǎo liánjù shī commentary on the Zhānshìfǔ — Qiánlóng’s most explicit anti-installation statement.

Translations and research

No complete English translation located.

  • Mark Elliott, Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World (Pearson, 2009), Ch. 5 on the secret-succession system and its historical justifications.
  • Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror (UC Press, 1999), Ch. 8.
  • Norman Kutcher, Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule (UC Press, 2018), passim, on the Qing succession question.
  • Harold Kahn, Monarchy in the Emperor’s Eyes: Image and Reality in the Ch’ien-lung Reign (Harvard, 1971), passim.
  • David Farquhar, The Government of China under Mongolian Rule: A Reference Guide (Steiner, 1990), passim, on the Yuán succession cases.
  • Joseph Adler, Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi’s Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi (SUNY Press, 2014), passim.

Other points of interest

The work’s polemical use of historical case-studies to justify a contemporary political policy is one of the most striking late-imperial Chinese instances of “history-as-doctrine” — a deliberately pedagogical anthology, compiled by the future ruling generation, to internalise a specific imperial-policy choice. The Qiánlóng emperor’s own verdict that bookish Confucian arguments for crown-prince installation are “in fact mostly self-interested calculation for their later families” (qí shí jiē zì wéi rì hòu shēn jiā zhī jì 其實皆自為日後身家之計) is unusually candid in critiquing the Confucian official-class’s intellectual self-interest.

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