曲洧舊聞

Qūwěi jiù wén 曲洧舊聞

Old Tales of Qū-wěi

by 朱弁 (Zhū Biàn, zì Shǎozhāng 少章, d. 1144; uncle of Zhū Xī 朱熹; Sòng emissary held captive by the Jurchens for 17 years)

About the work

A 10-juan Sòng bǐjì by Zhū Biàn, paternal uncle of Zhū Xī 朱熹, composed during his 17-year captivity in Jurchen Jīn territory after he was dispatched as Sòng emissary in Jiànyán dīngwèi (1127). The book exclusively records pre-Jìngkāng (1126) Northern Sòng intellectual, court, and political history — with not a single mention of the Jīn dynasty — under the title “old tales” (jiù wén) to evoke nostalgic loyalist memory. Qūwěi 曲洧 is a place-name in Hénán associated with Zhū’s home region. The book is one of the most poignant Sòng-transition-period bǐjì: composed in exile, recording the Northern Sòng he left behind.

The catalog meta gives the title as 苗洧舊聞 with author 朱辨; both are transcription errors for 曲洧舊聞 (Qūwěi jiù wén) and 朱弁 (Zhū Biàn) — the Sìkù tíyào and all transmitted editions agree.

The recension carries a four-poem imperial colophon by Qiánlóng emperor — the Yù tí Qūwěi jiù wén sì shǒu 御題曲洧舊聞四首 — at the head, in which Qiánlóng laments the Sòng’s fall as the consequence of Wáng Ānshí’s New Policies and the subsequent factional struggles.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Qūwěi jiù wén in ten juan was compiled by Zhū Biàn of the Sòng. Biàn’s zì was Shǎozhāng — Zhūzǐ’s [Zhū Xī’s] paternal uncle. The biographical record is in Sòng shǐ.

The Wénxiàn tōngkǎo records Biàn’s Qūwěi jiù wén in 1 juan, Zá shū in 1 juan, Wěi pǐ shuō 骩骳說 in 1 juan. This recension carries only the Qūwěi jiù wén, and that alone fills 10 juan. The exemplar is a yǐng chāo (photographic-shadow copy) from an old block-print: at the end of each juan is the imprint “Línānfǔ Tàimiào qián Yǐnjiā shūjí pù kān” — the Línān (Hángzhōu) Imperial-Temple-Front Yǐn-family bookshop’s printing. Furthermore the character dūn 惇 is omitted-strokes in deference to Guāngzōng’s [諱 dūn] taboo. So the original imprint cannot have erred; the Tōng kǎo’s “1 juan” must be a transmission error for “10 juan.”

Biàn in Jiànyán dīngwèi (1127) went as Sòng envoy to Jīn and was detained 17 years before returning. Within the book are entries: “on the eighth day of the twelfth month at Mt. Qīngliáng I saw Buddha-light, in the year jiǎyín (1134)”; entries on Mòmó yán (a place in Yānjīng [Beijing]); and an entry recording his friend reciting the Dìngguāngfó incantation: “a captive ten years” — so the book was composed during his Jīn captivity. Yet all records narrate Northern Sòng anecdotes — not a single word touches the Jīn — therefore the title “old tales.”

The Tōng kǎo lists it under xiǎoshuō. Now examining the book: although there are a few entries of marvel-tales and witticisms, most of what is recorded is the great virtue of past sovereigns and the words and deeds of the worthies and statesmen; on Wáng Ānshí’s policy-reform, Cài Jīng’s Shào shù policy, and the factional standoffs, his account is particularly detailed. The intent is to elucidate the rise-and-fall and order-and-disorder of the Northern Sòng dynasty — a substantial supplement to historical scholarship — not properly the xiǎoshuō class. There is also a sprinkling of shī huà and wén píng and kǎo zhèng entries, of mixed form, not properly zá shǐ. We now reclassify it under Zájiā.

Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng [1778].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Zhū Biàn 朱弁 (d. 1144; zì Shǎozhāng 少章). Native of Wùyuán 婺源 (now in Jiāngxī). Of the Zhūshì lineage; uncle of the great Sòng Lǐxué synthesizer Zhū Xī 朱熹 (1130–1200). The biographical record is Sòng shǐ j. 373. In Jiànyán 1 (1127) sent as Sòng emissary to negotiate with the Jīn (carrying letters to the captive emperor Huīzōng); detained at Jīn for 17 years; finally repatriated in Shàoxīng 13 (1143) and died the next year, 1144. During the captivity he was the principal Sòng-loyalist morale-figure among the captives at Yānjīng (Beijing). His other major work is the Fēng yuè táng shī huà 風月堂詩話 (a poetic-critical bǐjì, separately catalogued).

The Qūwěi jiù wén is composed during the long captivity (1127–1143) and is one of the most concentrated Sòng-loyalist bǐjì of the period. The Sìkù editors’ resistance to the older classification of the book under xiǎoshuō — and their explicit reclassification under Zájiā on the ground that the book is a substantive contribution to historical understanding — is one of the more decisive eighteenth-century editorial repositionings of a Southern Sòng bǐjì.

The book is the principal Northern-Sòng-late witness for the Wáng Ānshí New Policies and the subsequent Cài Jīng Shào shù policies, as filtered through the perspective of the Yuányòu / pro-Sī-mǎ Guāng tradition that Zhū Biàn inherited. The work’s analysis of the Yuányòu / Shàoshèng / Chóngníng faction-standoffs — and the connection to the eventual Jìngkāng catastrophe — is a sophisticated late-Sòng-loyalist political analysis.

Qiánlóng emperor’s Yù tí (imperial-titled) four-poem colophon at the head of the recension is itself an interesting eighteenth-century imperial reading: Qiánlóng explicitly attributes the Sòng fall to the Wáng Ānshí reforms (“had the descendants kept the founding-emperors’ system, what worry of breaking the eternal succession?”) and laments the Yuányòu / Yuánfēng factional split of “the household-internal Chéng [Yí] and Sū [Shì] taking up weapons against each other.”

Dating. NotBefore 1127 (Zhū’s departure for Jīn); notAfter 1143 (his return). Internal references — the jiǎyín (1134) Qīngliángshān entry, the Mòmó yán Yānjīng entry, the captive-ten-years phrase — securely anchor the composition to the late 1130s. The book was probably brought back with Zhū on his 1143 return.

The standard text is the SKQS recension, from a Línān Tàimiào qián Yǐnjiā Southern Sòng imprint. Modern punctuated edition by Kǒng Fánlǐ 孔凡禮 (ed.), Qūwěi jiù wén paired with the Shīyǒu tán jì 師友談記 KR3j0097 and Xītáng jí qíjiù xù wén in Zhōnghuá shūjú’s Tángsòng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān (2002).

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language complete translation. The work is regularly cited in modern Chinese-language scholarship on the Northern Sòng / Southern Sòng transition and on Zhū-shì family history. The Qiánlóng imperial colophon is a frequently-cited eighteenth-century imperial document.

Other points of interest

The book is one of the more poignant captives’ compositions in Chinese literary history — recorded over the 17 years of Zhū Biàn’s detention in Jīn territory, with not a single word touching the captors and an exclusive focus on the Northern Sòng past. The framing is uniquely Sòng-loyalist — and the book’s role in transmitting Northern Sòng intellectual-political memory across the Jìngkāng divide is a recurring topic in modern Chinese historiography.

The Qiánlóng emperor’s imperial colophon (preserved at the head of the SKQS recension) is an interesting case of eighteenth-century imperial reading of late-Northern-Sòng political history: Qiánlóng’s framing of the Sòng fall as a consequence of the Wáng Ānshí reforms is consistent with later Chinese imperial-conservative historiography but is also a partial reading.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3 · Záshuō zhī shǔ, Qūwěi jiù wén entry.
• Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11067091 (Zhū Biàn).