Xiāo Màotǐng wénjí 蕭茂挺文集
Collected Works of Xiāo Mào-tǐng (Xiāo Yǐng-shì) by 蕭穎士 (撰)
About the work
Xiāo Màotǐng wénjí 蕭茂挺文集 in 1 juǎn is the surviving collection of Xiāo Yǐngshì 蕭穎士 (709–760; zì Màotǐng 茂挺), the Tiānbǎo-period prose stylist who is the senior figure of the four canonical Tiānbǎo / Dàlì-period fùgǔ writers (Xiāo Yǐngshì, Lǐ Huá 李華, Dúgū Jí 獨孤及, Yuán Jié 元結) — collectively the bridge from the High-Tang court style to the YuánHé gǔwén movement of Hán Yù 韓愈. The 1-juǎn surviving extent is a fraction of the original corpus (the Tángshū yìwén zhì records 10 juǎn); only Xiāo’s prose has survived, and even that very partially.
Tiyao
Xiāo Màotǐng wénjí in 1 juǎn — by Xiāo Yǐngshì of the Táng. Yǐngshì was a Yǐngchuān 潁川 man, Màotǐng his zì, descendant of Liáng Póyángwáng 梁鄱陽王; the genealogy is set out in his Zèng Wéi sīyè shū 贈韋司業書. Jìnshì of Kāiyuán 23 (735), top of the cè (policy) examination. Tiānbǎo (early 740s) Mìshū zhèngzì 秘書正字 commissioned to inventory imperial library books; the project dragged on without report and he was indicted and dismissed. Soon recalled as Jíxián jiàolǐ 集賢校理; he offended Lǐ Línfǔ 李林甫 and was demoted to Guǎnglíng cānjūn 廣陵參軍. Wéi Shù 韋述 recommended him as shǐguǎn dàizhì 史館待制; he again offended Lǐ Línfǔ and was dismissed. After Lǐ’s death he was made Hénánfǔ cānjūn; on the An Lùshān rebellion he fled to Shānnán and joined Yuán Wěi’s 源洧 staff as zhǎng shūjì 掌書記; later Yángzhōu gōngcáo cānjūn 揚州功曹參軍. Resigned and died as a guest at Rǔnán 汝南.
Yǐngshì had composed a Fá yīngtáo fù 伐櫻桃賦 (“On Cutting Down the Cherry-Tree”) to satirize Lǐ Línfǔ. The Tángshū biography mocks this as biǎn 褊 (narrow-minded); but Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì 讀書志 praises the line “měi fǔlín yú Xiāo qiáng, jiānhuí dé ér kuīsì 每俯臨于蕭墻奸回得而窺伺” as zhī jī xiānjiàn 知幾先見 (“foreseeing the moment, seeing the future”) — the Tángshū’s judgment is wrong. At the time of An Lùshān’s height, Yǐngshì had already, with Liǔ Bīng 柳并, predicted the rebellion; once it broke out, he went to the Hénán cǎifǎngshǐ Guō Nà 郭納 with defensive proposals (Guō rejected them). When An Lùshān’s separate force attacked Nányáng 南陽 and the Shānnán jiédùshǐ Yuán Wěi proposed retreat, Yǐngshì’s intervention strengthened Yuán’s resolve to hold against the rebels. The Yǒngwáng Lín 永王璘 once tried to recruit him; he refused, and instead wrote to zǎixiàng Cuī Yuán 崔圓 urging defense of the Yangtze and Huái — and indeed Liú Zhǎn 劉展 soon rebelled. Yǐngshì’s strategic talent and moral commitment were considerable.
Abstract
The Sòng Tángshū yìwén zhì records Xiāo Yǐngshì wén jí in 10 juǎn; by the Sòng-period transmission this had collapsed to fragmentary form. The transmitted 1-juǎn WYG version contains a small body of prose (xù, biǎo, zòu, fù, bēi, and the famous Fá yīngtáo fù); none of his poetry survives in the biéjí tradition.
Xiāo Yǐngshì (709–760; CBDB cbdbId 32169 confirms) was a Yǐngchuān 潁川 native (modern Yǔzhōu, Hénán) by family origin; descendant of the Liáng dynastic Lánlíng Xiāo clan via the Liáng Póyáng wáng 梁鄱陽王 (= Xiāo Huī 蕭恢, an early figure of the Lánlíng Xiāo). His Tángshū biography is the principal biographical source; the Sìkù tíyào explicitly defends him against the Tángshū’s editorial dismissal of his temperament.
His role as the senior figure of the Tiānbǎo / Dàlì fùgǔ generation is set out programmatically in Lǐ Huá’s Yángzhōu gōngcáo Xiāo gōng wénzhuàn 揚州功曹蕭公文傳 (Xiāo’s funerary biography by Lǐ Huá, preserved in Quán Táng wén). He, Lǐ Huá, and Dúgū Jí formed a closely networked literary circle in the early Dàlì; Liáng Sù 梁肅, in turn, was Dúgū Jí’s pupil and the immediate predecessor of Hán Yù.
Translations and research
- Anthony DeBlasi. 2002. Reform in the Balance: The Defense of Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China. SUNY. Standard English-language treatment, with substantial discussion of Xiāo as the senior fù-gǔ figure.
- David L. McMullen. 1988. State and Scholars in T’ang China. CUP. Important context.
- Charles Hartman. 1986. Han Yu and the T’ang Search for Unity. Princeton UP.
- Sūn Wàng-tóng 孫旺通. 1989. “Xiāo Yǐng-shì shēng-píng yán-jiū” 蕭穎士生平研究. Wén-shǐ 30.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào’s pointed defense of Xiāo Yǐngshì against the Tángshū biography’s editorial dismissal — citing his strategic foresight on the An Lùshān rebellion, his refusal of the Yǒngwáng Lín recruitment, and his prescient warning about Liú Zhǎn — is one of the cleaner cases of the Sìkù compilers using a Tang literary collection to correct the standard-history evaluation.
Links
- Xiao Yingshi (Wikipedia)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §54 (Tang literature); §28.7.3 (Tang fu-gǔ tradition).