Mìzhāi bǐ jì 密齋筆記
Notes from the Hidden Studio
by 謝采伯 (Xiè Cǎibó, fl. 1202–1255; zì Yuánruò 元若, hào Mìzhāi 密齋); son of Prime Minister Xiè Shēnfǔ 謝深甫 and paternal uncle of Empress Xiè (consort of Lǐzōng).
About the work
A 5-juàn late-Southern-Sòng bǐjì by 謝采伯 (Xiè Cǎibó), composed at retirement, with a 1-juàn Xù jì (sequel). The Sìkù recension is restored from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, the original Sòng print having been lost. Composed when Xiè was 63 suì (the preface dates it to Chúnyòu 1 = 1241), the book covers classical, historical, and literary topics in 50,000+ characters, designed (in Xiè’s own preface) for his sons’ instruction. The book’s substantive contribution is to historical evaluation of past worthies and their words and deeds, with a moderate but consistent moral-historical orientation. Wáng Zōngdàn’s prefatory note (added when the book was printed in Bǎoyòu 4 = 1256 by Xiè’s son Xiè Yìmào in Fǔzhōu) compares Xiè to Lù Jiǎ 陸賈 (also a retired-after-success literatus) and notes his moral aloofness from the court politics of his niece-empress’s faction.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Mìzhāi bǐ jì in five juan and Xù jì in one juan was compiled by Xiè Cǎibó of the Sòng. Cǎibó’s zì was Yuánruò; a Línhǎi man of Tāizhōu; son of Prime Minister Shēnfǔ; paternal-uncle of Empress Xiè of Lǐzōng. Jìnshì of Jiātài 2 by the Fù Xíngjiǎn roll (1202). Held office through zhī Guǎngdé jūn, zhī Húzhōu, jiān Liùbù mén, Dàlǐsì chéng, Dàlǐsì zhèng. Sòng shǐ has no biography; his career is not fully recoverable. His office-titles and zì appear only in Chén Qíqīng’s Chìchéng zhì. The compilation is what he composed when, transferring office, he returned east; he records it for his son. He miscellaneously discusses classics, histories, and literary art — more than 50,000 characters; the self-preface saying “no contradiction of the Sage.”
Within the entries, citations of histories are largely useful to consider the gains and losses; miscellaneous records of past worthies’ fine words and good deeds also often have a power of admonition. Though his arguments are not always pure, his citations of evidence cannot quite match the breadth of KR3j0079 Róng zhāi suí bǐ or KR3j0021 Mèng xī bǐ tán. Yet his words have a substantive root: jade abundant, blemish few — also a fine specimen of shuōbù.
The Sòng shǐ says Empress Xiè’s father Qúbó died early; her elder brother was made jùnwáng, her nephews all jiédùshǐ. In early Duānpíng (1234) [the Xiè family] held considerable power in state affairs. Cǎibó, by his world-renowned and great-clan extraction, traversed central and provincial offices and accumulated huī jié (banner-and-baton, i.e. military-staff offices) — yet just when Empress Xiè came to power he alone laid aside his office and went into leisure-retreat, until the official historians forgot his name. So Cǎibó’s standing aloof from glory and benefit, with not the slightest court-political involvement, can be seen.
Wáng Zōngdàn’s prefatory note says: scholar-officials, in their late years, when their tastes have grown set, are rarely not led astray from their original principles; Mìzhāi alone used his books for the planning-after, leaving his descendants to know that even into old age he did not abandon study. So Cǎibó’s careful application to authorship was the spending of a lifetime’s energy — appropriately his words much hit the truth of principle.
The original is long lost; only scattered in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. We have reverently collected and compiled them, dividing into bǐ jì 5 juan and Xù jì 1 juan, retaining the original-table-of-contents arrangement.
Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng (1781).
Abstract
The Mìzhāi bǐ jì is one of the more moderately-toned of the late-Southern-Sòng bǐjì, a retired official’s monument of historical-evaluative scholarship for the instruction of his descendants. The book is significant in three ways:
- Moral-historical evaluation: The book’s substantive content is the evaluation of past historical figures — their words and deeds — with the explicit aim of chéng quàn (admonition and encouragement) for the author’s sons. The Sìkù editors’ phrase “jade abundant, blemish few” places the book firmly in the moderate-Confucian late-Southern-Sòng moralising tradition.
- Detachment from court factionalism: Xiè Cǎibó’s strategic retirement at exactly the moment his niece Empress Xiè came to power (early Duānpíng = 1234) — and the consequent absence of his name from the standard histories — is itself one of the more striking instances of late-Sòng aristocratic-political detachment. The Sìkù editors approvingly note this.
- Pedagogical preservation: The book’s intended-for-sons framing places it with the late-Southern-Sòng family-instructional genre, alongside Sūn Yì’s Shì ér biān KR3j0118 and similar works.
The book is acknowledged as not as broad in kǎozhèng as Hóng Mài’s Róng zhāi suí bǐ KR3j0079 or Shěn Kuò’s Mèng xī bǐ tán KR3j0021 — the Sìkù editors’ two principal benchmarks for Sòng bǐjì-of-the-first-rank.
Dating. The self-preface is dated Chúnyòu 1 = 1241, when Xiè was 63 suì (placing his birth around 1179). The book was first printed by Xiè’s son Xiè Yìmào in Bǎoyòu 4 = 1256 at Fǔzhōu (Wáng Zōngdàn’s prefatory note is dated Bǎoyòu bǐngchén). The SKQS recension is restored from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and divided into the original bǐ jì 5 + Xù jì 1 arrangement. NotBefore and notAfter both 1241.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation. The book is occasionally cited in Chinese-language scholarship on late-Southern-Sòng historical evaluation and on the Lǐ-zōng-period imperial-clan / consort politics. The Wáng Zōng-dàn preface is the primary source for Xiè Cǎi-bó’s biography.
Other points of interest
Xiè Cǎibó’s strategic withdrawal at the moment of his niece’s rise to imperial influence — and the subsequent erasure of his name from the standard histories — is one of the more elegant cases of late-Sòng aristocratic disengagement from the consort-faction politics that destabilised Lǐzōng’s reign.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3, Mìzhāi bǐ jì entry.