春明夢餘錄

Chūnmíng mèngyú lù 春明夢餘錄

Lingering Dreams of Spring Brightness

by 孫承澤 (Sūn Chéngzé, 1592–1676, zì Ěrbó 耳伯, hào Tuìgǔ 退谷), early-Qīng antiquarian, official, and historian of the Míng capital.

About the work

A 70-juàn monumental compilation by 孫承澤 (Sūn Chéngzé), composed in his decades of retirement at his Beijing studio Tuìgǔ 退谷. The title alludes to Chūnmíng — the literary name for the Míng capital — and mèngyú — the lingering dreams of a fallen dynasty. The book opens with Beijing’s foundation, geomantic position, walls, and surrounding metropolitan area; proceeds to fortifications, palaces, altars, and temples; then organizes the central bureaucracy by office; and ends with famous sites, monasteries, stele inscriptions, mountains, watercourses, and imperial mausolea. As a result the work is hybrid: part dìzhì (gazetteer), part zhízhì (official-handbook), and part documentary collection, with extensive transcripts of Míng zhāngshū (memorials). The Sìkù editors recognize Sūn’s documentary work as one of the most substantial repositories of Míng institutional history — much of it drawn from shílù and dǐbào (capital reports) — while criticizing the work’s mixed format and Sūn’s partial verdicts on certain controversies, especially the late-Míng calendar reform debate (where Sūn favours the old Yuán Dàtǒng calendar over Xú Guāngqǐ’s revised Jesuit method) and his sympathy for the discredited grand secretary Zhōu Yánrú 周延儒.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Chūnmíng mèngyú lù in 70 juàn was compiled by the Guócháo (current dynasty) man Sūn Chéngzé. Chéngzé’s Shàngshū jíjiě is already recorded [elsewhere]. The book opens with the capital’s foundation, geomantic position, walls, and surrounding metropolitan area; next, the fortifications, palaces, altars, and temples; next, the official bureaus; and ends with famous sites, monasteries, stele inscriptions, mountains and foothills, rivers and channels, and imperial mausolea. It resembles a topographic gazetteer, but the narrative of yángé (evolution) is very thin. The official-bureau divisions resemble an office-handbook, but each section mostly records Míng-era memorials, page after page — like a topical collection. The book’s format is rather messy and miscellaneous. Moreover, the headings throughout are all Míng-period, so it is improper that they reach back broadly to previous dynasties; and having so reached back, [Sūn] should have woven the threads to make the lineages clear, not hang up one and miss ten thousand. Each section has only a few lines, sometimes present sometimes absent, with no uniformity.

For instance: the Ministry of Rites’s first sub-heading is labeled Lǐzhì (Ritual Institutions), and opens with a paragraph from Zhū Xī’s Yílǐ jīngzhuàn tōngjiě, then a paragraph from Wú Chéng’s Sānlǐ kǎozhù, then a paragraph from Zhū Xī’s Jiālǐ. These are rú writings, not court ritual statutes — they should not be classed under the Ministry of Rites. And what is more, [Zhū Xī’s] Sòng and Wú Chéng’s Sòng writings are not Míng new-institution, certainly not for the Míng’s Ministry of Rites. What is the rationale here? The Tàiyī yuàn (Imperial Medical Academy) section, apart from one paragraph on its officials, miscellaneously records old men’s medical-book prefaces and various pulse-discussions to fill out one juàn. Quite apart from the impossibility of comprehensive coverage, even comprehensive coverage of those would have no bearing on the Míng Tàiyī yuàn. By the same logic, the Hànlín gate would have to record all zhìgào and poetry-prose of all dynasties.

And further: Chéngzé followed factional residual currents; his verdicts retain factional bias. As in the Wànlì-onwards calendar discrepancy — multiple voices contesting; by Chóngzhēn the Western Method vs. Chinese Method clamor was at its peak — this is a great evolution. Yet the Qīntiānjiān (Astronomical Bureau) section, on Zhèng Shìzǐ Zàiyù’s various discussions — those now in the Míng shǐ — are all cut and not recorded; and on Xú Guāngqǐ and others’ law-changing, [Sūn] only preserves the outline, and says the old method was only a matter of time-difference, not harming affairs — and further says the new method too will eventually drift. There is a deliberate suppression and elevation, not fair. For at that time most opinion attacked the Dàtǒng calendar — and the Dàtǒng calendar had once been revised by Xǔ Héng. Chéngzé, by jiǎngxué (Daoxue lineage) attachment, took Xǔ’s side, and his repeated treatment of Xǔ as cízōng shows the intent quite clearly.

Moreover, Zhōu Yánrú’s bribery and being sentenced to death was not unjust. Yet Chéngzé in the Nèigé (Grand Secretariat) section records his Zhífáng jì (Office record) as a fine piece, and again in the Xíngbù (Ministry of Justice) section places the joint cabinet defense of Yánrú under the heading shènxíng (judicious punishments) — distorting public right and wrong further. His personal likes and dislikes often run in this way; so the book is not to be relied on as a diǎnyào (canonical compendium).

Yet on Míng-era old hearings he has gathered very fully; one dynasty’s zhǎnggù (institutional matters) are largely preserved through this book, and most are taken from the Shílù and Dǐbào — different from those who write by chuánwén (hearsay). So investigators of fallen-state remains find substantial resource in this compilation.

Respectfully revised and submitted, third month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng (1777).

Abstract

The Chūnmíng mèngyú lù is the single most extensive Qīng compilation on the institutional and topographic history of the Míng capital. 孫承澤 (Sūn Chéngzé) — a Chóngzhēn 1631 jìnshì, Míng censor, briefly an official under Lǐ Zìchéng’s Shùn regime in 1644, then a Qīng Vice-Minister of Personnel under Shùnzhì — withdrew to his Beijing studio Tuìgǔ in the 1650s and devoted his last two decades to scholarship. The work is the principal product of that retirement.

The book’s principal value lies in:

1. Documentary basis. Sūn drew on the Míng shílù, dǐbào (capital reports), and his own holdings of Míng administrative documents — sources that elsewhere have been lost. The book preserves long zhāngshū (memorials) verbatim, an irreplaceable record of Míng institutional discourse.
2. Topography of Míng Beijing. The opening juàn on the capital’s foundation, fortifications, palaces, altars, and temples is one of the foundational accounts of Míng Beijing’s urban form.
3. Office-by-office institutional history. The treatment by ministries and bureaus, though uneven, anticipates the topical-handbook tradition of Qīng compilations.

Sìkù strictures. The editors note Sūn’s partial treatment of the late-Míng calendar controversy (favouring the old Dàtǒng calendar over Xú Guāngqǐ’s Jesuit-influenced revision) and his apologetic treatment of Zhōu Yánrú — both reflective of Sūn’s jiǎngxué (Cheng-Zhū) factional loyalties.

Dating. Sūn retired definitively from office in the late 1650s; composition is concentrated in the 1660s. NotBefore 1660, notAfter 1676 (his death). The preface and editorial work continued until shortly before his death.

Translations and research

No complete Western-language treatment. The book is cited extensively in modern scholarship on Míng Beijing — notably:

• Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900, California, 2000. Uses Chūn-míng mèng-yú lù throughout.
• Frederick W. Mote, The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7 (Ming Dynasty, Part 1), Cambridge, 1988 — cites Sūn on institutional matters.
• Chinese-language scholarship on Sūn includes the punctuated edition by Wáng Jiànyīng 王劍英 et al. (Beijing Gǔjí, 1992).

Other points of interest

Sūn Chéngzé’s career trajectory — Míng jìnshì, Míng censor, brief service under Lǐ Zìchéng’s Shùn dynasty in early 1644, then Qīng Vice-Minister — made him a figure of considerable contemporary controversy. He is one of the èrchén (twice-serving ministers) discussed in Qing historiography. His scholarship is unanimously praised even by critics of his political conduct; the Sìkù editors carefully separate the two.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3, Chūnmíng mèngyú lù entry.
• Wikipedia: Sun Chengze.