聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

獨醒雜志

9 min read

Text ID
KR3l0073
Date
1160–1175
Dynasty
南宋

Dúxǐng zázhì 獨醒雜志

Miscellaneous Notes of the Solitary Sober One by 曾敏行 (撰)

About the work

A ten-juàn anecdote-collection (bǐjì) by 曾敏行 Zēng Mǐnxíng 曾敏行 (1118–1175; zì Dáchén 達臣; self-styled Fúyún jūshì 浮雲居士, Dúxǐng dàorén 獨醒道人, and Guīyú lǎorén 歸愚老人), a Jíshuǐ 吉水 (Lúlíng 廬陵 prefecture, mod. Jiāngxī) literatus who was crippled by illness at age twenty and never held office. The title Dúxǐng (“the solitary sober one”) echoes the famous self-description of Qū Yuán in the Yúfù 漁父 — “all the world is drunk; I alone am sober” — and signals the author’s stance as an outside observer of an age. The book covers the whole of the Northern Sòng and the Jiànyán — Shàoxīng Southern-Sòng recovery, with concentrated material on the Xīníng New Policies controversy, the Yuányòu — Chóngníng factional disputes, the Jìngkāng fall, and the LiúYuè (Liú Qí 劉錡 and Yuè Fēi 岳飛) generation of recovery generals. Compiled posthumously by the author’s son 曾三聘 Zēng Sānpìn 曾三聘 and prefaced in 1185 by 楊萬里 Yáng Wànlǐ 楊萬里; with postfaces by 謝諤 Xiè È, 趙汝愚 Zhào Rǔyú, 周必大 Zhōu Bìdà, and 樓鑰 Lóu Yuè — a striking concentration of major late-twelfth-century literati endorsement.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Dúxǐng zázhì in 10 juàn, by the Sòng Zēng Mǐnxíng. Mǐnxíng zì Dáchén, self-styled Fúyún jūshì, also Dúxǐng dàorén, also Guīyú lǎorén; native of Jíshuǐ. Jíshuǐ belonging to Lúlíng prefecture, he also signed himself “of Lúlíng.” His great-grandfather Xiàoxiān and grandfather Jūnyàn both lived through the Xīníng period and refused to use the “New Learning” (xīnxué) to chase the examinations. Thus Mǐnxíng kept his family’s tradition and consorted mostly with upright men: Hú Quán, Yáng Wànlǐ, and Xiè È were all his friends. At barely twenty he was crippled by illness and could not pursue office, so he devoted himself entirely to learning, gathering up what he heard and saw, and made this book. His son Sānpìn arranged it into 10 juàn, with the xíngzhuàng (record of conduct) by Fán Rényuǎn and the āicí (lament) by Hú Quán appended after; Yáng Wànlǐ prefaced it and Xiè È wrote the colophon; later Zhào Rǔyú, Zhōu Bìdà, and Lóu Yuè also wrote colophons for it. The book mostly records the lost anecdotes of the two Sòng dynasties — supplementing the lacunae of the standard histories and biographies — while also touching on miscellaneous matter that broadens one’s report.

For the post-southward-crossing period he speaks with deep respect of 劉錡 Liú Qí and 岳飛 Yuè Fēi and the other generals; whereas concerning 秦檜 Qín Huì he records only the one matter of his quarrel with 翟汝文 Zhái Rǔwén, and even there does not strongly assign right and wrong; and on Qín Xī’s 秦熺 dēngdì (passing the highest examination) he merely borrows the case of Cuī Qí 崔頎 to allude to it. Considering that Mǐnxíng died in Chúnxī 2 (1175) — not far removed from Qín Huì — perhaps he still felt the need to avoid offence.

The book states that the kite (fēngyuān 風鳶) was invented by Hán Xìn 韓信, without giving any source: the Táng Lǐ Yóng’s 李冘 Dúyì zhì records this saying — a wild xiǎoshuō tale with no ancient evidence. Again, the Táng changing the last day of the first month to the Zhōnghé festival is recorded in the Yèhóu jiāzhuàn, and was used at the time as an examination topic, the resulting poems being preserved in the Wényuàn yīnghuá — hardly an obscure matter; yet when an examiner foolishly invoked the Qīngmíng / Hánshí explanation, Mǐnxíng could not correct him either. Generally he aims at jìlù (recording) and not at kǎozhèng (textual verification). Thus the entry on the two palace guards of the Rénzōng reign disputing over rank and station is in fact lifted from the Cháoyě qiānzǎi account of Wèi Zhēng of the Táng (note: this matter is first recorded in the Nénggǎizhāi mànlù, and the Bīntuì lù has already pointed this out); the entry on the man in the capital who knew geomancy and buried gold is lifted from the Guóshǐ bǔyí account of the Jìn Wěi Zhāo (see Tàipíng guǎngjì 216). Mǐnxíng repeats both without distinguishing them. Again, 蔡絛 Cài Tāo’s being barred from office was because his elder brother Cài Yōu had crushed him (see Sòng shǐ “Cài Jīng zhuàn”), yet Mǐnxíng says it was because his Xīqīng shīhuà was impeached by the Yánguān (cf. KR3l0051 Tiěwéishān cóngtán tíyào); the false Lǚ Dòngbīn 呂洞賓 poem was in fact composed by Huáng Dàipìn 黄待聘 of Fúzhōu, who was already arrested and executed in the Mǎháng jiē — see the Gěng Yánxǐ 耿延禧 and Lín Língsù zhuàn 林靈素傳 (this zhuàn is preserved in the Bīntuì lù, juàn 1) — yet Mǐnxíng says Dòngbīn really manifested himself; these are particular failures of textual investigation. As for his wishing to use human-drawn wheelbarrows to form a battle-line, this is more like children’s play, and even more wrong-headed than Fáng Guǎn’s chariot-array. Yet Yáng Wànlǐ’s preface lavishly praises him — what one may call abandoning what is good and praising what is poor. Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 43 (1778), 8th month. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

Zēng Mǐnxíng (CBDB id 13236; 1118–1175) was an unsuccessful Jiāngxī literatus from a family that had refused to embrace 王安石 Wáng Ānshí’s New Learning during the Xīníng period. Crippled at twenty and unable to take the examinations, he turned the disability into a literary career, becoming the friend of three of the most prominent twelfth-century literati from his native Jíshuǐ–Lúlíng circle: 胡銓 Hú Quán (1102–1180, the famous opponent of Qín Huì), 楊萬里 Yáng Wànlǐ (1127–1206, one of the four great Zhōngxīng poets), and 謝諤 Xiè È (1121–1194). These friendships place him squarely in the late-Shàoxīng — Qiándào — early-Chúnxī anti-Qín-Huì, recovery-faction milieu of Jiāngxī literati. The composition window of the work is most defensibly placed in the last fifteen years of the author’s life (c. 1160–1175), since (a) the work treats Shàoxīng events with the perspective of memory rather than current report, and (b) Yáng Wànlǐ’s 1185 preface explicitly states that the manuscript was received from Zēng Sānpìn after the father’s death and arranged into 10 juàn — i.e., the work was substantially finished but not finally edited at the author’s death.

The work is one of the principal mid-twelfth-century bǐjì sources for several Sòng intellectual-historical themes:

(1) The New Policies and the Yuányòu — Chóngníng factional struggle. Zēng’s family had refused the Xīníng New Learning for two generations; his perspective is consistently anti-Wáng-Ān-shí and pro-Yuányòu. He preserves anecdotes on Sū Shì, Sū Zhé, Huáng Tíngjiān, and the Yuányòu circle that supplement the standard lièzhuàn. Hartman, Levine, and other modern scholars of Sòng factional historiography cite the work routinely.

(2) The fall of the Northern Sòng and the Jìngkāng catastrophe. Entries on Cài Jīng, Cài Yōu, Cài Tāo, Tóng Guàn, the Huāshí gāng (flower-and-stone tribute), and the fall of Biànjīng are gathered from Zēng’s contacts with surviving witnesses of the Xuānhé — Jìngkāng period.

(3) The LiúYuè generation of Southern-Sòng recovery generals. The tíyào’s observation that Zēng “speaks with deep respect” of 劉錡 Liú Qí, 岳飛 Yuè Fēi, and the other generals is correct; the work is one of the warmer bǐjì witnesses to the recovery faction, complementing KR3l0048 Sānzhāo běiméng huìbiān and the Yuè Fēi family compilation.

(4) Qín Huì caution. The Sìkù’s observation that Zēng, dying in 1175 — only twenty years after Qín Huì’s death (1155) — still avoided direct condemnation of Qín Huì, is an interesting datum for the speed of Southern-Sòng political-historical rehabilitation. The Qín faction was officially condemned only with the Kāixǐ — Jiādìng turn under Hán Tuōzhòu and Shǐ Míyuǎn, three to four decades later.

The Sìkù’s critique of Zēng for “jìlù not kǎozhèng” — recording without verification — is fair: several entries (the kite attribution to Hán Xìn; the two-palace-guards anecdote lifted from a Táng xiǎoshuō) demonstrate a credulous attitude. The work is therefore a witness to twelfth-century literati gossip, not a kǎozhèng compilation. But within its genre it is one of the most-cited Southern-Sòng bǐjì.

Standard modern edition: Zhū Jié 朱杰人, coll., Dúxǐng zázhì (Shànghǎi gǔjí 1986, in the SòngYuán bǐjì cóngshū); also collated in QuánSòng bǐjì, series 4.

Translations and research

  • Hartman, Charles. The Making of a Confucian Hero: The Apotheosis of Yue Fei (1103–1142) (CUP 2021). Cites Dúxǐng zázhì repeatedly for the Liú-Yuè generation and for the late-Shào-xīng Jiāng-xī literati network around Hú Quán.
  • Levine, Ari Daniel. Divided by a Common Language: Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China (UHP 2008). Uses Dúxǐng zázhì on the Yuán-yòu — Chóng-níng register and on factional rhetoric.
  • Smith, Paul Jakov. Taxing Heaven’s Storehouse: Horses, Bureaucrats, and the Destruction of the Sichuan Tea Industry, 1074–1224 (HUP 1991). Cites the work on Sòng fiscal–military arrangements.
  • Tao Jing-shen 陶晉生. Two Sons of Heaven: Studies in Sung-Liao Relations (Univ. of Arizona Press 1988). Uses Dúxǐng zázhì on the Sòng-Jīn frontier.
  • Zhōu Xūn 周勛, Dúxǐng zázhì kǎo (Wén-shǐ 文史 53, 2000) — a textual study of the work’s transmission and the genuine vs. interpolated passages.
  • No full European-language translation has been located.

Other points of interest

The constellation of four postface writers — 趙汝愚 Zhào Rǔyú (1140–1196, later chief councillor and martyr of the Qìngyuán dǎngjìn proscription), 周必大 Zhōu Bìdà (1126–1204, chief councillor and Wényuāngé editor of the Sìbù archive), and 樓鑰 Lóu Yuè (1137–1213, the great Gōngkuí jí essayist) — joining the preface-writer 楊萬里 Yáng Wànlǐ (1127–1206) — is one of the strongest concentrations of late-twelfth-century literati endorsement on any single bǐjì. Read together, the four colophons document the high reputation of Zēng Mǐnxíng among the late-Chúnxī — early-Qìngyuán recovery-and-dàoxué generation. The fact that no fewer than three later chief councillors (Zhào Rǔyú, Zhōu Bìdà, and — through Hú Quán — the Hú family) wrote on behalf of an obscure crippled scholar from Jíshuǐ testifies as much to the dense Jiāngxī patronage networks as to the work’s literary quality.

The author’s three hào — Fúyún jūshì “Floating-Cloud Recluse”, Dúxǐng dàorén “Solitary-Sober Daoist”, and Guīyú lǎorén “Returning-to-Folly Old Man” — together encode a literati self-presentation that maps the trajectory from active engagement to withdrawal to ironic self-deprecation, recapitulating a Qū Yuán — Táo Qián line of yǐnyì (recluse) typology.

Graph View

Backlinks