Wǔ zǒng zhì 五總志
Records of the Five Gatherings
by 吳坰 (Wú Jiōng, fl. 1090–1143; from Yuán-yòu-faction stock; refugee at Wúzhūchéng after the Jīngkāng catastrophe).
About the work
A 1-juàn Sòng bǐjì by 吳坰 (Wú Jiōng), composed in refuge at Wúzhūchéng 無諸城 in Fújiàn after the Jīngkāng catastrophe. The title alludes to the Lǐ Jì — “the turtle generates the five gatherings (wǔ zǒng) and so knows affairs” — and the book is a miscellany of kǎozhèng and reading-notes, especially on Northern Sòng affairs. Wú is from Yuán-yòu-faction stock — his grandfather an yùshǐ under Rénzōng (honoured by Rénzōng with the imperial calligraphy “Tiě yùshǐ” 鐵御史 “Iron Censor” for memorialising for the beheading of a corrupt minister), his father a private secretary in Lǐ Bāngzhí’s 李邦直 establishment, exiled in Chóngníng 4 (1105). Wú is a partisan of the Jiāngxī school of poetics: he gives Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅 “the credit of having opened up new ground for poetics.”
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Wǔ zǒng zhì in one juan was compiled by Wú Jiōng of the Sòng. Jiōng’s career is incompletely recorded. The book carries his own preface, dated Jiànyán gēngxū (1130), [composed at the] Wúzhūchéng Xiāosì Dàoshān tíng in time of refuge. The book contains an entry on his being with Sū Shūdǎng (Sū Guò) on the journey from Tàiyuán to the trans-river region, and another on being robbed in Jīngzhào in the Jǐngkāng bǐngwǔ (1126); evidently he was one of those who fled south with Gāozōng from Biànjīng. The very first entry records his grandfather having served as yùshǐ under Rénzōng, who once memorialised to behead the great minister [for failing] to apologise to the empire: Rénzōng wrote out in large characters “Tiě yùshǐ” (Iron Censor) and bestowed it on him. Another entry: Jiāzhōu’s annual tribute of lìzhī (lychee) and hóngsāng (red-mulberry), with his grandfather as Qiáwéi lìng composing the Sān jiè shī (Three Cautions Poem) to convey his view, and being commended at the Nine Stories [the imperial court]. Yet another: his father once stayed in Lǐ Bāngzhí’s establishment; and in Chóngníng yǐyǒu (1105) was demoted to Jīngnán — so Wú is the grandson and son of Yuányòudǎng people; but the standard histories’ omission leaves their names unrecoverable.
The book records what Wú had heard and seen, miscellaneous affairs, with occasional kǎozhèng on old reading; the title is from “the turtle generates the five gatherings (wǔ zǒng) and so knows affairs.” Among the entries: he extols Huáng Tíngjiān as having “opened up new ground for the poets” — so he had taken to heart the Jiāngxī school’s lineage. His citations of old anecdote have hits and misses: he says the Qiān zì wén “chì yuán wài zhì” — “chì” 勅 should be “liáng” 梁, the Liáng imperial command not yet using “chì”; that the Bì luò bēi has “jiàng zé” two stages — these have evidentiary support. To his “Hàn Gāo[-zǔ] jù cè received the Grand General without cap, refused to see the Chéngxiàng” — this is in fact Hàn Wǔdì’s treatment of Jí Àn, misascribed to Gāozǔ — slipshod. Other books all say Luò Bīnwáng joined Xú Jìngyè’s rising, was defeated, became a monk at the Língyǐnsì, completed Sòng Zhīwèn’s Guì zǐ tiān xiāng couplet — that account is already inconsistent; yet this book says that before Bīnwáng was prominent he was a hired worker at Hángzhōu Fàntiānsì, where an old monk was painfully reciting and unable to complete; Bīnwáng completed it for him — somewhat more reasonable than the others, only that one cannot know what its source is. On Northern Sòng minor affairs Wú’s account is detailed and useful as cross-evidence. Shuō fù records this book in only a few entries; this recension agrees with the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn version on collation — it must be the transmitted original.
Respectfully revised and submitted, first month of the forty-fourth year of Qiánlóng (1779).
Abstract
The Wǔ zǒng zhì is the surviving witness to a minor late Northern – early Southern Sòng Yuányòu-faction descendant’s reading and travel. The book draws on Wú’s three principal pools of recollection: (i) his grandfather’s career as the Tiě yùshǐ “Iron Censor” under Rénzōng — preserving the early-Northern-Sòng remonstrance ethos; (ii) his father’s affiliation with Lǐ Bāngzhí 李邦直’s mùlǐ (private-secretary office); (iii) his own travels — including a journey from Tàiyuán to the trans-river region in the company of Sū Guò 蘇過 (Sū Shì’s son), and the Jǐngkāng bǐngwǔ (1126) journey through Jīngzhào during which he was robbed. The book is significant for its Jiāng-xī-school poetics partisanship — the explicit credit Wú gives Huáng Tíngjiān as a poetic innovator places him in the early-Southern-Sòng Jiāngxī camp.
Wú’s kǎozhèng is uneven. The Sìkù editors flag the (correct) detection that the Qiān zì wén phrase “chì yuán wài zhì” must originally have been “liáng yuán wài zhì” (the imperial command “chì” not yet being so named in the Liáng), and that the Bì luò bēi has “jiàng zé” double-witness — both with solid evidentiary basis. The book is also significant for an unusual variant on the Luò Bīnwáng / Sòng Zhīwèn Guì zǐ tiān xiāng couplet anecdote — Wú places Luò as a younger hired worker at Hángzhōu’s Fàntiānsì, completing an old monk’s couplet, rather than the standard story of Luò-as-monk completing Sòng’s couplet at the Língyǐnsì. The Sìkù editors find this version “somewhat more reasonable” though unsourced.
Dating. NotBefore 1130 (Wú’s preface at Wúzhūchéng); notAfter 1143 (the latest internally datable references, after which Wú vanishes from the record). CBDB death-date is 1154.
The standard text is the SKQS recension, restored from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. The Shuō fù preserves only a few entries.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation. The book is cited in Chinese-language Jiāng-xī school poetics scholarship and in Northern–Southern Sòng bǐjì studies. The Yuán-yòu-dǎng family-history value of the book is increasingly recognised in modern scholarship.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3, Wǔ zǒng zhì entry.