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雞肋編

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Text ID
KR3l0068
Date
1133–1139
Dynasty
南宋

Jīlèi biān 雞肋編

The Chicken-Rib Compilation by 莊綽 (撰)

About the work

A three-juàn bǐjì 筆記 of the Northern–Southern-Sòng transition by 莊綽 Zhuāng Chuò 莊綽 (zì Jìyù 季裕, fl. ca. 1090–1150), a Qīngyuán 清源 (Quánzhōu) literatus and minor official who served in posts spread across Xiāngyáng 襄陽, Yuánzhōu 原州 Línjīng 臨涇, Shùnchāng 順昌, and Lǐzhōu 澧州 in the closing decades of Northern Sòng and the opening decades of the southern court. The self-deprecating title — jīlèi “chicken-rib”, from the famous HòuHàn shū anecdote of Cáo Cāo’s watchword (shí zhī wú wèi, qì zhī kě xī 食之無味，棄之可惜, “tasteless to chew but a pity to throw away”) — frames the collection as miscellaneous matter neither important enough to publish nor trivial enough to discard. The author’s self-preface is dated Shàoxīng 3 (1133), but internal references reach down to Shàoxīng 9 (1139), indicating continued accretion after the formal preface. The work is now valued as one of the principal bǐjì witnesses to the Jìngkāng 靖康 catastrophe (1126–1127), the South-China migration, regional folklore and agriculture, popular religion, and Sòng medicine — material heavily quarried by twentieth- and twenty-first-century historians of the Sòng–Jīn transition.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Jīlèi biān in 3 juàn, by the Sòng Zhuāng Jìyù. Jìyù’s given name is Chuò; he is known by his zì; a man of Qīngyuán. His shǐmò (career particulars) are not recoverable. Only Lǚ Jūrén’s Xuānqú lù records his appearance — “qīngqú (slender and gaunt); people called him xìyāo gōng yuànzǐ” (the slim-waisted Palace-Yard boy); also Xuē Jìxuān’s Làngyǔ jí contains a preface to Jìyù’s Shìfǎ xīnyí, but neither records his life. From the dates inside the book — beginning in Shàoshèng (1094–98) and ending in Shàoxīng (1131–62) — he must have lived between Northern and Southern Sòng. Further, the entry on the “Filial Son Yǐn” self-states “I once served as acting wèi of Xiāngyáng”; the Yuánzhōu “Pear-tree at Táng” entry says “I was deputy at Línjīng”; the “Lǐ Jié eating fermented crabs” entry says “I held office at Shùnchāng”; the “Auspicious-Fragrance Pavilion” entry says “I served at Lǐzhōu” — but what specific office he held cannot be ascertained. This book has a self-preface dated Shàoxīng 3, second month, fifth day (1133); yet the records include Shàoxīng 9 (1139) matters — we suspect the book, after being completed, was further added to. There was never a kānběn (printed edition); Táo Zōngyí’s Shuōfú records only twenty or thirty entries — this present text has about five times what the Shuōfú preserved. After it is a postface by Chén Xiàoxiān, dated mid-spring of Zhìyuán yǐmǎo (1315), saying: “This book is the hand-collection of Zhuāng Chuò Jìyù. Chuò was learned and broadly informed: his Du-Fǔ-poetry collected proofs, his Moxibustion of the Gāohuāng method, his Shìfǎ xīnyí, all circulated in his time. I have heard he had many other works, regrettably I have not seen them. This book passed Qiūhè’s (i.e., Jiǎ Sìdào’s) emendation; he took it as a ‘pleasure-bestowing miscellany’, but its errors are very many; therefore I have corrected them as on the right — yet though dusted off, much still remains doubtful” — so this is indeed the integral version of Jìyù’s original. Jìyù’s father was, in the Yuányòu period, on terms with Huáng Tíngjiān, Sū Shì, and Mǐ Fú; Jìyù himself still met Mǐ Fú and Cháo Bǔzhī, so his learning had genuine pedigree, and he likewise knew much yìwén jiùshì (lost reports and old matter). In the book, things like — not knowing that the Lóngchéng lù was written by his contemporary Wáng Zhì, instead citing it to refute the Jīnhuá tújīng — sometimes lack textual verification; yet there is much that is worth taking. His entry on the Liáo–Sòng oath-document takes its main thrust as favouring héyì (peace-treaty), each man stating his own view; Jìyù being a floating provincial functionary, distinct from court officials who attached themselves to Qín Kuài, evidently has his own line. Taken as a whole, the book is the equal of the later Zhōu Mì’s Qídōng yěyǔ, and beyond what the Chuògēng lù and the like can reach. Qiánlóng 42 (1777), 5th month, respectfully checked. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Zhuāng Chuò’s biography is recoverable only from indirect notices: Lǚ Běnzhōng’s 呂本中 Xuānqú lù gives the famous “slim-waisted Palace-Yard boy” 細腰宫院子 sobriquet (a play on his unusually thin build, against the Chǔ Língwáng anecdote of palace women starving for slim waists), and Xuē Jìxuān’s 薛季宣 Làngyǔ jí preserves Zhuāng’s Shìfǎ xīnyí preface. The internal date references — Shàoshèng 1 (1094) at the earliest, Shàoxīng 9 (1139) at the latest, with the self-preface at Shàoxīng 3 (1133) — frame his floruit and define the composition window for the received Jīlèi biān at 1133–1139, the work growing by accretion after the dated preface. Wáng Yúnwǔ’s 王雲五 Shāngwù edition (see below) accepts this dating; the Sìkù compilers’ bracket of “Northern–Southern-Sòng transition” follows from the same evidence.

The work is one of the principal Sòng bǐjì sources for the Jìngkāng zhī biàn — the Jīn sack of Biànjīng 汴京 (Kāifēng) in 1126–1127, the capture of the Huīzōng and Qīnzōng emperors, and the subsequent imperial flight and South-China refugee migration. Zhuāng’s eyewitness or near-eyewitness reports — preserved unsystematically through the three juàn — include entries on northern famine and price-collapse, the dispersal of refugees toward Huáinán and the Yangtze valley, the destruction of imperial collections and printing-blocks, the ravaging of the Héběi countryside by Jīn cavalry and by retreating Sòng troops, and the gradual reconstitution of court ritual under Gāozōng at Línān. The work has been mined for these passages by virtually every modern Sòng-transition scholar (Hartwell, Bol, Hartman, Ebrey, Lau Nap-yin, Hà Bīngdì).

Beyond the transition narrative, the Jīlèi biān preserves substantial material on:

  • Local customs and dialect, especially of Xiāngyáng, Yuánzhōu (Línjīng, the Sòng–Xīxià frontier), Shùnchāng (Mǐnběi), and Lǐzhōu (north-western Húnán) — i.e., the four prefectures where Zhuāng held office. This circuit-officer geography makes the work an unusual bǐjì of the Sòng provincial periphery rather than the standard Biànjīng / Línān metropolitan focus.
  • Agriculture and food: notable for entries on regional crops, fermented foods (fermented crab 糟蟹 at Shùnchāng), tea-leaf and rice cultivation differences north and south, salt-trade, and famine substitution-foods recorded from the Jiànyán refugee crisis.
  • Popular religion and folklore: filial-son cults, dragon and snake legends, monk and fāngshì anecdotes, divination practice (Zhuāng was himself the author of a Shìfǎ xīnyí 筮法新儀 on milfoil-stalk divination).
  • Medicine: Zhuāng’s medical interests — he is also the author of Jiǔ gāohuāng shùxué fǎ 灸膏肓腧穴法 (KR3ee046), the foundational Southern-Sòng monograph on gāohuāng moxibustion — surface here in entries on epidemic disease, popular pharmacopoeia, and the moxibustion treatment of frontier-troop ailments.
  • Material culture and antiquities: Zhuāng’s father had been a Yuányòu circle acquaintance of Sū Shì, Huáng Tíngjiān, and Mǐ Fú; Zhuāng himself in youth met Mǐ Fú and Cháo Bǔzhī. The work accordingly preserves anecdotes on Northern-Sòng calligraphy, painting, and antique-collecting from a younger generation’s perspective.

The Jīlèi biān never circulated in a Sòng printed edition; the Sìkù compilers note that only Táo Zōngyí’s 陶宗儀 Yuán-era Shuōfú 説郛 had preserved twenty or thirty entries, and that the Sìkù’s manuscript exemplar has roughly five times that material — i.e., the Shuōfú transmission was a heavy excerpt, while the integral text survived through YuánMíng manuscript copying. A Yuán postface by Chén Xiàoxiān 陳孝先 dated Zhìyuán 1 (i.e. Zhìyuán yǐmǎo = 1315) records that the text had passed through the editorial hand of Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道 (hào Qiūhè 秋壑, the notorious late-Sòng councillor) as a yuèshēng suíchāo “pleasure-bestowing miscellany” — Chén Xiàoxiān’s recension corrected Jiǎ Sìdào’s errors and constitutes the textual ancestor of the Sìkù version.

Standard modern editions: Xiāo Lǔyáng 蕭魯陽, coll., Jīlè biān (Zhōnghuá 1983, TángSòng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān series) — the standard punctuated edition. Earlier modern circulation through the Cóngshū jíchéng and the Shāngwù yìnshūguǎn Sìbù cóngkān xùbiān photo-reprint.

Translations and research

  • Xiāo Lǔ-yáng 蕭魯陽 (coll.). Jī-lè biān 雞肋編. Běijīng: Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1983 (Táng-Sòng shǐ-liào bǐ-jì cóng-kān 唐宋史料筆記叢刊). The standard modern critical edition.
  • Hartwell, Robert M. “Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750–1550.” HJAS 42 (1982): 365–442. Uses Jīlèi biān on the Northern-Sòng population shift southward.
  • Bol, Peter K. “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China. Stanford UP, 1992. Cites Jīlèi biān on the early-Southern-Sòng literati milieu.
  • Hartman, Charles. The Making of a Confucian Hero: The Apotheosis of Yue Fei, 1141–1279. Cambridge UP, 2021. Uses Jīlèi biān on the Jìng-kāng — Jiàn-yán transition and the Qín Kuài peace party.
  • Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. Women and the Family in Chinese History. Routledge, 2003. Cites Jīlèi biān on Sòng marriage and household practice.
  • Davis, Edward L. Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 2001. Cites Jīlèi biān on Sòng popular religion and exorcism.
  • Despeux, Catherine, ed. Médecine, religion et société dans la Chine médiévale. Paris: Collège de France, 2010. Uses Jīlèi biān on Southern-Sòng medical practice (alongside Zhuāng’s Jiǔ gāo-huāng shù-xué fǎ).
  • Hinrichs, T. J., and Linda L. Barnes, eds. Chinese Medicine and Healing. Belknap, 2013. Cites Jīlèi biān for the Sòng-transition medical-cultural context.
  • No full European-language translation has been located; passages translated piecemeal in the studies above.

Other points of interest

  • The self-deprecating jīlèi title became, through this work, a standing literary trope for bǐjì collections — later imitations (the Qīng Jīlèi piān 雞肋偏 and similar) trace their title back to Zhuāng Chuò’s example. The HòuHàn shū anecdote of Yáng Xiū 楊修 reading Cáo Cāo’s watchword underlies the trope: jīlèi is matter neither vital nor disposable, hence the perfect bǐjì posture.
  • The text’s transmission through Jiǎ Sìdào’s editorial hand (recorded by Chén Xiàoxiān) is one of the few surviving notices of Jiǎ Sìdào’s literary work as collector and editor of bǐjì miscellanies — a side of the late-Sòng councillor’s activity usually overshadowed by his political and military notoriety.
  • Zhuāng’s entry on the Liáo–Sòng oath-document, with its sympathetic treatment of the héyì (peace-treaty) policy, is now a locus classicus for Sòng frontier-diplomacy historiography; the Sìkù compilers carefully distinguish Zhuāng’s provincial-officer perspective from that of the Línān QínKuài faction with whom he had no association, defending the integrity of his pro-treaty view.

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