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山房隨筆

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Text ID
KR3l0080
Date
1280–1320
Dynasty
元

Shānfáng suíbǐ 山房隨筆

Random Jottings from the Mountain Studio by 蔣正子 (撰)

About the work

A one-juàn anecdotal bǐjì by 蔣正子 Jiǎng Zhèngzǐ 蔣正子 (hào Quányú 全愚, “Completely Foolish”), a late-Sòng yímín 遺民 (loyalist) who lived on into the Yuán. The Sìkù compilers were unable to recover his native place or any career detail beyond what the book itself records: an entry on Dù Shànfǔ 杜善甫 contains the line “Yǔ fēnjiào Lìyáng” 余分教溧陽 (“I served as instructor at Lìyáng”), so he held a low-ranking xuéguān 學官 post at Lìyáng 溧陽 (in present-day Jiāngsū); another entry uses the phrase “Mùlíng zài yù” 穆陵在御 (“when Mùlíng was on the throne”), the standard loyalist circumlocution for Sòng Lǐzōng 理宗 (r. 1224–1264, posthumous tomb name Mùlíng), confirming his identity as a Sòng man who entered the Yuán. The work mixes shīhuà 詩話 (poetry-talk) with yímín anecdote of late-Sòng / early-Yuán court and country matter, dwelling repeatedly on the Sòng collapse — Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道 and Zhèng Hǔchén 鄭虎臣 at the Mùmiánān 木棉菴 affair, Zhāng Shìjié 張世傑 and Lù Xiùfū 陸秀夫 at Yáshān 厓山, Xià Guì’s 夏貴 surrender, Wén Tiānxiáng 文天祥, Wú Lǚzhāi 吳履齋 (Wú Qián 吳潛) — alongside shīhuà on Sòng poets (Liú Gǎizhī 劉改之 [Liú Guò 劉過], Lú Méipō 盧梅坡, Yuán Hǎowèn 元好問, etc.).

Tiyao

Your servants report: Shānfáng suíbǐ in 1 juàn, the old text inscribed “Yuán Quányú Jiǎng Zhèngzǐ zhuàn” 元全愚蔣正子撰. Of what place he was is unknown; only within the book, in the Dù Shànfǔ entry, occurs the phrase “I served as instructor at Lìyáng” (yǔ fēnjiào Lìyáng 余分教溧陽), from which we know he was once a school-official at Lìyáng. Again the phrase “Mùlíng zài yù” 穆陵在御 (Mùlíng on the throne) appears, from which we know he was a Sòng man who entered Yuán. What is recorded is mostly matter of the late Sòng and early Yuán, and on the affair of Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道 he repeatedly, deeply marks the man’s crime. On the matter of Zhèng Hǔchén 鄭虎臣 at Mùmiánān 木棉菴 (the post-station where Zhèng murdered the exiled Jiǎ Sìdào in 1275), the narrative of cause and consequence is also more detailed than in any other book.

Only the recorded poem by Lù Xiùfū 陸秀夫 (Privy Counsellor) mourning Zhāng Shìjié 張世傑 (Yǐngzhōu) appears to be a fabrication after the fact (sì chū fùhuì 似出附㑹). At Yáshān 厓山, when the boats overturned and the whale-sea seethed, was there leisure to yínyǒng 吟咏 (recite poetry)? Moreover the line in the poem “Once I heard at sea, gallbladder like iron-peck” (céng wén hǎishàng tiědǒu dǎn 曾聞海上鐵斗膽) does not even sound like the language of a contemporary. Zhū Guózhēn’s 朱國禎 Yǒngzhuàng xiǎopǐn 湧幢小品 says Shìjié died by drowning after Xiùfū had thrown himself into the sea — and on that ground also doubts this poem; the point is well-taken. It is presumably a busy-body who, wishing to commend the loyal and righteous, fabricated these lines.

As for blaming Xià Guì’s 夏貴 surrender to Yuán on Jiǎ Sìdào — that is not unreasonable; but the author’s repeated apologetic gloss treats Xià Guì almost with words of excuse, which cannot but offend against dàyì 大義 (the great moral principle). The reader who does not let the cí (wording) damage the yì (intent) will be well-served. Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 45 (1780), 2nd month. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Jiǎng Zhèngzǐ is otherwise unattested in Yuán biographical sources: CBDB has no record under this name; the Sìkù compilers explicitly state “bù zhī hé xǔ rén” 不知何許人 (“of what place he was is unknown”). The dates can be set only by internal evidence: he held a xuéguān post at Lìyáng (a county on the south bank of the Yángzǐ in modern Jiāngsū) — datable, by the Mùmiánān and Yáshān materials and by the Mùlíng zài yù phrasing, to before the 1276 Yuán conquest; and he was still alive and composing into the Yuán. The composition window for the received recension is therefore best given as c. 1280–1320 — i.e., the early decades of Yuán rule, when the yímín generation was still writing.

The work is a hybrid of bǐjì and shīhuà. The shīhuà element preserves anecdotes about Xīn Qìjí 辛棄疾, Zhū Xī 朱熹 (Huìān 晦菴) and Zhāng Shì 張栻 (Nánxuān 南軒) hosting the eccentric poet Liú Guò 劉過 (Gǎizhī 改之); Yuán Hǎowèn 元好問 and his sister’s exchange with the Mongol official Zhāng Píngzhāng 張平章; Lú Méipō 盧梅坡’s plum-blossom poems; Zhāng Wénjiǎn 張文簡 (Zhāng Bāngchāng 張邦昌)‘s snow poem; and a number of poems composed by Sòng monks and reclusive shīsēng 詩僧 (Yuánzhào 元肇 Huáihǎi 淮海 of Língyǐn 靈隱, the monk Běnzhēn 本真, the monk Défēng 德豐 of Sānshān 三山).

The yímín anecdotal element is what made the book valuable to later historians: the work is one of the principal early sources for the Mùmiánān murder of Jiǎ Sìdào by Zhèng Hǔchén (1275), and the Sìkù note explicitly singles out this passage as more detailed than parallel accounts. The treatment of Xià Guì’s surrender, the false-attribution of a mourning-poem for Zhāng Shìjié to Lù Xiùfū, the entries on Wú Qián (Lǚzhāi 履齋, exiled to Xúnzhōu by Jiǎ Sìdào and dying there), Wén Tiānxiáng, Liú Yítǒng 留中齋 (Liú Mèngyán 留夢炎, the zhuàngyuán of 1244 who served the Yuán) — all are read by modern scholars as the work of a yímín coming to terms with the moral catastrophe of the dynastic collapse. The Sìkù compilers’ irritation at the author’s leniency toward Xià Guì registers the same point: the work’s moral framing is itself part of its evidence for the yímín sensibility.

The text is preserved chiefly via the Sìkù / WYG, and through the Míng Shāng Jùn 商濬 Bàihǎi 稗海 collectanea (which prints a slightly different one-juàn recension). It is now standard in the QuánSòng bǐjì and Yuánrén bǐjì punctuated reissues.

Translations and research

  • Jay, Jennifer W. A Change in Dynasties: Loyalism in Thirteenth-Century China (Western Washington UP, 1991). Treats the late-Sòng yí-mín generation as a whole, using Shānfáng suíbǐ among the bǐ-jì sources for Wú Qián, Liú Mèng-yán, and the Yá-shān legend.
  • Davis, Richard L. Wind Against the Mountain: The Crisis of Politics and Culture in Thirteenth-Century China (HUP, 1996). Cites Shānfáng suíbǐ on the Jiǎ Sì-dào / Zhèng Hǔ-chén / Mù-mián-ān episode and on the post-conquest reputation of Wú Qián.
  • Franke, Herbert and Hok-lam Chan. Studies on the Jurchens and the Chin Dynasty (Variorum, 1997). Uses Shānfáng suíbǐ on Yuán Hǎo-wèn and the post-Jīn northern literati.
  • Zhōu Xūn-chū 周勛初 (chief ed.). Táng-Yuán bǐ-jì xiǎoshuō dà-guān 唐元筆記小說大觀. Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2000. Standard punctuated text.
  • No European-language translation has been located.

Other points of interest

The work is a textbook case of the Sìkù’s critical apparatus at work: the editors record it, praise its Mùmiánān narrative, but flag two specific defects — a fabricated Lù Xiùfū poem (caught by a cross-reference to Zhū Guózhēn 朱國禎’s Yǒngzhuàng xiǎopǐn 湧幢小品 of the late Míng), and a moral lapse in the author’s relative leniency toward the turncoat Xià Guì 夏貴. This kind of double-edged evaluation (preserve the source, flag the bias) is the same protocol the Sìkù applied to Cài Tāo’s Tiěwéishān cóngtán (cf. KR3l0051) and to Fāng Sháo’s Bózhái biān (cf. KR3l0049).

The phrase Mùlíng zài yù 穆陵在御 — naming Sòng Lǐzōng by his tomb (Mùlíng 穆陵) rather than by reign-title or temple-name — is a small but characteristic yímín tic: under the Yuán it was politically safer (and emotionally pointed) to refer to the fallen sovereigns by their tombs in the Kuàijī hills. The same circumlocution is found in Zhōu Mì 周密’s Guǐxīn zázhì 癸辛雜識 (cf. KR3l0070) and Wáng Yuánliàng 汪元量’s poetry.

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