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開天傳信記

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Text ID
KR3l0113
Date
890–900
Dynasty
唐

Kāitiān chuánxìn jì 開天傳信記

Trustworthy Records of the Kāi-yuán and Tiān-bǎo Eras by 鄭綮 (撰)

About the work

A single-juǎn collection of thirty-two anecdotes about the Kāiyuán (713–741) and Tiānbǎo (742–756) reigns of Xuánzōng — the high Táng — compiled by the late-Táng official, satirist, and minister Zhèng Qǐ 鄭綮 (d. 899). The work’s title (chuánxìn “transmitted as trustworthy”) signals its compiler’s earnest claim, made in the preface, that “during odd moments of administration I sought out yíyì (lost / leftover material), aiming always for what was reliable, so I called it chuánxìn” (簿領之暇捜求遺逸期於必信故以傳信為名). The book belongs to the same late-9th-century retrospective “KāiTiān nostalgia” current as Wáng Rényù’s Kāiyuán Tiānbǎo yíshì and Liú Sù’s SuíTáng jiāhuà: by Zhèng’s day the KāiTiān era already functioned in literary memory as the lost golden age of the Táng. The anecdotes mix court ceremony, Daoist fāngshì (Yè Fǎshàn, Luó Gōngyuǎn), and human-interest sketches of Xuánzōng’s intimates.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Kāitiān chuánxìn jì in 1 juǎn. The Táng Zhèng Qǐ 鄭綮 zhuàn. Qǐ, zì Yùnwǔ 藴武, a man of Xíngyáng 滎陽. He passed the jìnshì and rose through the ranks to Yòu sànqí chángshì. He liked to use balladry and ditties for veiled remonstration; Zhāozōng, surmising his depths, promoted him to Lǐbù shìláng tóng zhōngshū ménxià píngzhāngshì. He was the so-called Xiēhòu Zhèngwǔ 歇後鄭五 (“Lame-line Zhèng-the-fifth”) become Chancellor — what we know of his career, that is the same man. The Jiù Táng shū biography says Qǐ held offices through Jiānchá, Diànzhōng, Cāng, Hù the two yuánwài, and the Jīn, Xíng, Yòusī three láng posts; but the original of this book heads its author as Lìbù yuánwài láng, a post the biography does not record — perhaps the historical record had lacunae. The book records all Kāiyuán and Tiānbǎo affairs, thirty-two entries in all; the preface says it was compiled in the leisure of bùlǐng (book-keeping), seeking out lost matter, aiming always at the trustworthy, hence the title Chuánxìn. Its account of Mínghuáng’s stealthy outing in southern Chángān, when Wáng Jū 王琚 brought him into his house to plan the elimination of the Wéi clan, is in fact according to the WángJū biography in the Táng shū the occasion of Jū’s appointment as xuǎnbǔ zhǔbù, going to thank the Crown Prince and seizing the chance to suggest the elimination of Tàipíng gōngzhǔ, with no prior visit to Jū’s home; Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōngjiàn does not follow our book either. Only the Xīn Táng shū takes both versions in tandem; however, when the Wéi clan held power, Jū was at that time a Wáng Tóngjiǎo faction fugitive in Jiāngdū — how could he have set up residence in WéiDù? Zhèng Qǐ’s account is probably not factual, and it is right that the Tōngjiàn did not adopt it. Likewise items like the Huàyīn mountain-god vision, the Luó Gōngyuǎn invisibility-art, the Yè Fǎshàn talisman-magic and so on slide into the supernatural and are not all yǎxùn (refined and well-attested). Yet the book has long circulated, and many later books on Táng affairs draw from it; we therefore preserve it as one xiǎoshuō among many.

Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 12th 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

The Kāitiān chuánxìn jì is by Zhèng Qǐ 鄭綮 (d. 899; zì Yùnwǔ 藴武), the late-Táng official whose ironic poetic doggerel under Xīzōng and Zhāozōng earned him the soubriquet Xiēhòu Zhèngwǔ 歇後鄭五 (“Zhèng-the-fifth of the lame second lines”). He passed the jìnshì under Xuānzōng, served as Jiānchá yùshǐ, Diànzhōng, Cāng and Hù department vice-directors, Yòu sànqí chángshì; in Wéndé 1 (888) he was made Yòu jiànyì dàfū, in 894 Lǐbù shìláng tóng zhōngshū ménxià píngzhāngshì, and died in 899. CBDB and most external sources give his death-year as 899; the catalog meta is silent on dates.

Composition probably falls in the very last years of his life, c. 890s (the book carries the Lìbù yuánwài láng attribution-line, an early stage of his career, but compilers often dated the attribution back to a particular office). The standard date bracket adopted here is 890–900, the decade preceding Zhèng’s death; some scholarship places composition slightly earlier, in the 880s. The thirty-two anecdotes are a representative cross-section of late-9th-century KāiTiān nostalgia: Xuánzōng’s encounter with the god of Hua-shān; the Daoist masters Yè Fǎshàn 葉法善 (the canonical hermetic-magician of the Tang court) and Luó Gōngyuǎn 羅公遠 (the invisibility-adept who escorts the emperor to the moon-palace on the Mid-Autumn night); the night-time stroll into southern Chángān during which the future Xuánzōng meets Wáng Jū 王琚 (this episode disputed by the Tōngjiàn but adopted by the Xīn Táng shū); the Lǐ Bái — Hè Zhīzhāng tavern-encounter at the Qítíng 旗亭; the Tàizhēn fēi (i.e., Yáng Guìfēi) playing the pípá. Many of these became the stock-images of the KāiTiān mythology in subsequent literary culture.

The textual tradition is unproblematic: the Xīn Táng shū Yìwén zhì and Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì both list it in 1 juǎn; the WYG and standard modern Cóngshū jíchéng editions preserve the same recension. The historical significance of the book lies in its place between the contemporary Cìliǔ shì jiùwén of Lǐ Déyù and the slightly later Wǔdài compilations like Kāiyuán Tiānbǎo yíshì, mapping the early stages of how late-Táng writers fixed the KāiTiān memory.

Translations and research

  • Allen, Sarah M. Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China (Harvard-Yenching 2014). Major source-critical study of late-Táng anecdote-collections, including Kāi-tiān chuán-xìn jì among the Kāi-Tiān nostalgia corpus.
  • Reed, Carrie E. Chinese Chronicles of the Strange (Peter Lang 2001).
  • Lǐ Jiàn-guó 李劍國. Táng Wǔ-dài zhì-guài chuán-qí xù-lù 唐五代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Nán-kāi 1993).
  • Twitchett, Denis. The Writing of Official History under the T’ang (Cambridge 1992). Methodological treatment of the boundary between official histories and works like Chuán-xìn jì — discussing the Tōng-jiàn’s refusal of Zhèng Qǐ’s Wáng Jū anecdote as a model case of late-Táng source-criticism.
  • Yáng Jiā-luò 楊家駱, coll., Táng-Sòng shǐ-liào bǐ-jì cóng-kān: Kāi-tiān chuán-xìn jì 唐宋史料筆記叢刊‧開天傳信記 (Zhōnghuá, 1958). Standard modern critical edition.

Other points of interest

The case of the Tōngjiàn’s refusal to follow Chuánxìn jì on the Wáng Jū story, while the Xīn Táng shū did follow it, is a textbook example in modern Sòng historiography for how Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōngjiàn kǎoyì worked: the Tōngjiàn could be sceptical of late-Táng xiǎoshuō even when the new official history accepted it. The episode is regularly cited (Twitchett 1992; Allen 2014) in discussions of kǎoyì method.

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