儒林公議

Rúlín gōngyì 儒林公議

Public Discussions of the Confucian Forest by 田況 (撰)

About the work

A one-juàn record of court politics and shìdàfū conduct from Jiànlóng (960) to Qìnglì (1041–1048), by the Rénzōng-era chief military minister 田況 Tián Kuàng 田況 (1005–1063, zì Yuánjūn 元均). The work is the principal contemporary witness to the central-Northern-Sòng péngdǎng (faction) controversies — particularly to Fàn Zhòngyān 范仲淹’s Qìnglì xīnzhèng 慶曆新政 (1043–45) and Ōuyáng Xiū’s Péngdǎng lùn 朋黨論 — and contains substantial commentary on the rise of faction-rhetoric in Sòng court politics. Tián Kuàng had served as Xià Sòng’s 夏竦 mùliáo (subordinate) at the Hǎoshuǐchuān debacle (1041), and the work’s somewhat charitable treatment of Xià Sòng has been read as a personal zhījǐ (recognition-of-merit) loyalty, though Tián is fully laudatory of Xià Sòng’s enemies Fù Bì and Hán Qí as well.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Rúlín gōngyì in 1 juàn, by the Sòng Tián Kuàng. Kuàng zì Yuánjūn 元均; ancestral home Jīngzhào, family removed to Xīndū. Kuàng passed jìnshì and the xiánliáng fāngzhèng examination, served as Tàicháng chéng and bì (assigned) as Shǎnxī jīnglüè pànguān; entered the central government as Yòu zhèngyán; held QínShǔ military command; eventually rose to Shūmì shǐ (Military Affairs Commissioner); retired as Guānwén diàn dàxuéshì in charge of Jǐnglíng gōng; died with his life recorded in Sòng shǐ Běnzhuàn. His writings include 30 juàn of memorials, long lost. The present compilation records Jiànlóng to Qìnglì court politics and shìdàfū conduct in considerable detail; matter of the Five-Dynasties Ten-Kingdoms also appears as one or two entries here and there — gathered miscellaneously, so the qiánhòu (order) is not always tidy. The discussions sometimes accept conventional view and suíshēng fùhè (echo the chorus) without being uniformly grounded in zhènglǐ (right reason); but the general tone is gōngpíng (fair-and-even). The entries on the Rùgé huìyì (court audience council) clarify zhǎnggù (precedent) and aid the reading of history. The Dōngdū shìlüè says Kuàng wrote essays “Hǎomíng” (loving fame) and “Péngdǎng” (faction), with strict warning; in the present biān, in the Fàn Zhòngyān and Ōuyáng Xiū entries, he repeatedly addresses the origins of dǎnghuò (faction-disaster). His vision is large and right, hardly attainable. Kuàng was formerly Xià Sòng’s mùliáo; in the Hǎoshuǐchuān battle [1041] Kuàng memorialised strongly and Xià did not despatch troops, on Kuàng’s advice — so the book treats Xià with much shùcí (charitable speech). And of those whom Xià disliked — Fù Bì etc. — he extols them in extreme terms; absolutely without dǎngtóng fáyì (faction-loyalty / sect-attacking).

Abstract

Tián Kuàng (CBDB id 1617; 1005–1063) was a senior Rénzōng-era military commissioner whose career spanned the XīXià war (the Hǎoshuǐchuān catastrophe of 1041), the Qìnglì reform, and the Huángyòu settlement. His Rúlín gōngyì, evidently composed in the final two decades of his life (c. 1043–1061), is one of the principal contemporary primary sources for the rise of péngdǎng lùn (faction-discourse) in Northern-Sòng politics. Tián Kuàng was sympathetic both to his old chief Xià Sòng (his early mùliáo connection) and to Xià’s opponents Fù Bì 富弼, Hán Qí 韓琦, and Ōuyáng Xiū — making the work an unusually even-tempered witness across the factional divide.

The work covers some 100 entries on: imperial succession politics, examination culture, military affairs (especially the XīXià war), Yuèfǔ (court music ritual), and personalities of the Tiānshèng — Jiāyòu generations. Many entries are repeated word-for-word in Lǐ Tāo’s Xù Zīzhì tōngjiàn chángbiān. The Sìkù compilers’ favourable judgment of Tián’s evenness is supported by modern Sòng-historians (Fang Cheng-hua 方誠華, Northern Song military intellectuals).

Standard modern edition: collated in Zhōnghuá’s QuánSòng bǐjì, ser. 1, vol. 5 (2003).

Translations and research

• Smith, Paul Jakov. 2009. “Shen-tsung’s Reign and the New Policies,” in Cambridge History of China, vol. 5. Cites Rú-lín gōng-yì for Qìng-lì reform background.
• Lǐ Tāo 李燾 Xù Zī-zhì tōng-jiàn cháng-biān — major user of the work.
• Levine, Ari Daniel. 2008. Divided by a Common Language: Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China. UHP. Cites the work on factional discourse.
• No European-language translation has been located.

Other points of interest

Tián Kuàng’s twin essays “Hǎomíng” (Love of Fame) and “Péngdǎng” (Faction) — noted in Dōngdū shìlüè — appear to be embedded in or related to entries of this work; they constitute one of the earliest Sòng critical responses to the rise of factional self-justification.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §63.
• https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=86461