Cì Liǔshì jiùwén 次柳氏舊聞
A Sequel-Arrangement of the Old Tales Heard from Liú Family by 李德裕 (撰)
About the work
A one-juàn collection of seventeen anecdotes about Xuánzōng 玄宗, transmitted from the historiographer Liǔ Fāng 柳芳 through his son Liǔ Miǎn 柳冕 to Lǐ Jífǔ 李吉甫, and from Jífǔ recalled and written down by his son 李德裕 Lǐ Déyù (787–850) in 834 in response to an Imperial command of Wénzōng. The work was presented at court together with another text (Yùchén yàolüè 御臣要畧) in Tàihé 8/9/jǐwèi (834) per the Jiù Táng shū annals. The work preserves Xuán-zōng-era court anecdote (including the famous bribery story of Yáo Chóng 姚崇 and Wèi Zhīgǔ 魏知古, and the wet-nurse substitution that supposedly placed Dàizōng 代宗 on the throne) much of it now suspect as historical record but valuable as the curated court memory of the LǐDéyù faction.
Tiyao
Your servants report: Cì Liǔshì jiùwén in 1 juàn, by the Táng Lǐ Déyù. Déyù’s biography is in the Táng shū. The book contains seventeen entries, all relating to Xuánzōng’s later years. It carries Déyù’s own preface, which says: “Shǐguān Liǔ Fāng was exiled to Qiánzhōng in Shàngyuán (760–761); Gāo Lìshì 高力士 was at the same time exiled to Wūzhōu 巫州. Fāng and Lìshì were thrown together and from him Fāng heard the secret events of the inner palace, which he recorded under the title Wèn Gāo Lìshì. In the Tàihé years (827–835) imperial command sought out this book; Chief Minister Wáng Yá 王涯 and the others enquired of Fāng’s grandson Liǔ Jìng 柳璟 the zhīdù yuánwài láng, who could not produce it. But my father Jífǔ had been friend to Fāng’s son Liǔ Miǎn the lìbù lángzhōng, and had heard the matter from him and told it to me; I now from memory record it and submit it.” The Jiù Táng shū Wénzōng běnjì records under Tàihé 8 (834), 9th month, jǐwèi: “Chief Minister Lǐ Déyù presented Yùchén yàolüè and Liǔshì jiùwén in 3 juàn” — evidently the same event, though the juàn count differs (perhaps the two works together total 3). Of the entries: the death of Empress Yuánxiàn 元獻 from medicine; Zhāng Guǒ’s 張果 swallowing of monkshood; Wúwèi sānzàng 無畏三藏’s rain-praying; Empress Wú dreaming of a gold-armoured deity; the small dragon of the Xìngqìng pond; the Nèi dàochǎng exorcism — all touch on the marvellous. The Yáo Chóng / Wèi Zhīgǔ rivalry and the wet-nurse substituting another child for Dàizōng likewise look unreliable as historical record. We preserve them as supplementary lore. Liǔ Jìng’s Chángshì yánzhǐ 常侍言旨 (note: there is no independent edition; what follows is from Táo Zōngyí’s 陶宗儀 Shuōfú 説郛) opens with Lǐ Fǔguó 李輔國 forcing Xuánzōng’s removal to the Western Palace, with the note “this matter is fully recorded in the Yájué wūtài tàiwèi sequel by Chéng [Yánxián 程晏], to which the present is supplementary”…
Abstract
The work is a one-juàn recension that survives only because Lǐ Déyù, then in the second tenure of his chief ministership under Wénzōng, undertook to reconstruct from family memory the lost LiǔFāng Wèn Gāo Lìshì manuscript when imperial command in the Tàihé era could not locate the original. Its chain of transmission is unusually well-attested: Gāo Lìshì → Liǔ Fāng (in exile, 760s) → Liǔ Miǎn → Lǐ Jífǔ → Lǐ Déyù (memorised) → text (834). Each removal is one generation, and Lǐ Déyù himself acknowledges in the preface that he is reconstructing from his father’s hearsay; the Sìkù compilers’ caution about authenticity is well placed.
The supplementary Chángshì yánzhǐ 常侍言旨 of Liǔ Jìng (later in Tàihé; Jìng was Liǔ Fāng’s grandson and a senior official) was appended to the Cì Liǔshì jiùwén in the Shuōfú transmission and is preserved by the Sìkù. Its sole entry concerns Lǐ Fǔguó’s removal of Xuánzōng to the Xīnèi in 760, a key political moment of the Sùzōng accession.
Translations and research
- Fù Xuán-cóng 傅璇琮, ed. 2006. Táng-rén yì-shì huì-biān 唐人軼事彙編. Shànghǎi gǔjí. Reproduces the Cì Liǔ-shì jiùwén text with notes.
- No complete European-language translation has been located.
Other points of interest
Notable as a piece of partisan historical memory: Lǐ Déyù, the dominant figure of the Lǐ faction in the NiúLǐ struggle, was reconstructing court anecdote with a clear interest in the prestige of his father Lǐ Jífǔ and (more obliquely) of the high-Táng prime ministerial tradition. Several anecdotes have been challenged by modern scholarship (Twitchett, Chen Yinke) for accuracy.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §61.3 (Táng bǐjì).
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Deyu