Guāiyá jí 乖崖集
The Guāi-yá Collection (of Zhāng Yǒng) by 張詠 (撰)
About the work
Guāiyá jí 乖崖集 is the 12-juǎn collection of the celebrated early-Sòng prefect-administrator and poet Zhāng Yǒng 張詠 (946–1015), zì Fùzhī 復之, hào Guāiyá 乖崖 (“Awkward and Steep” — i.e. unbending). Zhāng’s reputation rests less on literary art than on his historical fame as the “iron prefect” of Yìzhōu 益州 (Chéngdū), whom contemporary opinion held responsible — together with Lǐ Shùn 李順 — for stabilizing Sìchuān after the Wáng Xiǎobō, Lǐ Shùn uprising; his Jiāzǐ invention of jiāozǐ 交子 paper money is one of the principal events in the world economic history of paper currency. The catalog meta gives 946–1015, in agreement with CBDB id 332 and the Sòngshǐ j. 293 biography.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: the Guāiyá jí in 12 juǎn was composed by Zhāng Yǒng of the Sòng — his deeds are recorded in his Sòngshǐ biography. Two Sòng-period recensions are recorded: the 10-juǎn one cited in Zhào Xībiàn’s Dúshū fùzhì, said to append Qián Yì’s epitaph and Lǐ Tián’s yǔlù; and the 12-juǎn one cited in Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí, which says Guō Sēnqīng 郭森卿, while zǎi of Chóngyáng, recut the older 10-juǎn text and expanded it with the yǔlù into 12 juǎn. The present recension carries Guō’s preface — clearly the one Chén saw. The preface says he added 8 poems found in stone inscriptions to those of the printed text, and supplemented Hán Qí’s shéndào bēi, Wáng Yǔchēng’s Sòng zǎi Chóngyáng xù 送宰崇陽序, Lǐ Tāo’s cítáng jì, and Xiàng Ānshì’s Běifēng tíng jì — all of which we have collated and confirmed; only the abridged niánpǔ he says he separated as 1 juǎn is now missing, plainly lost in transmission. Zhāng twice governed Yìzhōu, ruling with combined kindness and severity, awe-inspiring to officials and people alike; in life he was upright and high-spirited, with that towering uncrossable nobility — yet his prose is plain and unforced, not given to peculiar phrasings, and his poetry is listed among the XīKūn tǐ (note: in the XīKūn chóuchàng the seventeen names include him at no. 11). His Shēng fù 聲賦 plumbs the depths of subtle obscurity — Liáng Zhōuhàn praised it as “a piece not seen in a hundred years” — so he was not without intent in writing. But his luminous, vigorous, magnificent expression flowed from his nature, and his genuine spirit is at once palpable, without any sign of contrived polishing.
(The tíyào also identifies several mis-attributions: Hán Qí’s shéndào bēi abridged a qīyán couplet of Zhāng’s into a 5-character paraphrase; the cíhuà attribution of “dú hèn tàipíng wú yī shì” 獨恨太平無一事 / “jiāngnán xián shā lǎo shàngshū” to Zhāng with Xiāo Línzhī’s correction is shown to be a misreport — the actual line in the collection reads “fāng xìn chéngpíng wú yī shì, Huáiyáng xián shā lǎo shàngshū” 方信承平無一事、淮陽閒殺老尚書, in qīlǜ not juéjù form; the Xiǎoyīng gē 小英歌 attributed to Zhāng in Qīngxiāng zájì is dismissed as too coarse to be his.) Qiánlóng 45 (1780) 7th month, respectfully collated. — Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Zhāng Yǒng (946–1015), of Púzhōu 濮州 (modern Hénán), passed the jìnshì in Tàipíng xīngguó 5 / 980. He served as prefect of Chóngyáng (Wáng Yǔchēng’s Sòng zǎi Chóngyáng xù commemorates his appointment), and twice as the principal civil governor of Yìzhōu (Sìchuān) (998–1000 and 1006–1009) — first to consolidate the suppression of the Wáng Xiǎobō, Lǐ Shùn peasant rising and a second time to manage the post-rebellion transition; this Yìzhōu tenure is the source of his historical fame and the setting of the most famous anecdotes of his administrative severity. He died in Tiānxǐ 4 / 1020 (the Sòngshǐ gives his death age as 70 sui, hence 1015 as the conventional date adopted here following CBDB and the catalog meta). Hán Qí 韓琦 韓琦 composed his shéndào bēi, which is appended to the present recension.
The literary corpus collected here — in the 12-juǎn Guō Sēnqīng recension prepared at Chóngyáng in Jiādìng 嘉定 1 (1208) — comprises straightforward gǔwén memorials and prose, fù, and a body of XīKūn-affiliated poetry (Zhāng’s name is no. 11 in the XīKūn chóuchàng list). Stylistically the prose is plain and the poetry decorative; the Sìkù tíyào’s judgement — that Zhāng’s literary character is at odds with the XīKūn fashion he formally joined — is the one most often cited in later shīhuà. The yǔlù 語錄 supplied by Lǐ Tián 李畋 in 1 juǎn (here distributed across the appendix) is the principal source for Sòng-period anecdote about Zhāng. The dating bracket here brackets Zhāng’s death in 1015 to the terminus ad quem of the Guō Sēnqīng recension (1208).
Translations and research
- Smith, Paul Jakov. 1991. Taxing Heaven’s Storehouse: Horses, Bureaucrats, and the Destruction of the Sichuan Tea Industry, 1074–1224. Harvard UP. Discusses Zhāng Yǒng’s Yì-zhōu administration as the precondition for later Sòng Sìchuān fiscal policy.
- von Glahn, Richard. 1996. Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700. UC Press. Discusses Zhāng’s jiāo-zǐ and the early Sòng paper-money origin in Sìchuān.
- Yáng Guó-ān 楊國安. 2007. Zhāng Yǒng yán-jiū 張詠研究. Hé-nán dàxué chūbǎnshè. Standard modern Chinese monograph.
Other points of interest
Zhāng Yǒng’s famous historical role in the early development of jiāozǐ 交子 paper money in Sìchuān (typically dated to around 1005–1008 under his second Yìzhōu tenure) is the principal reason his biography continues to attract attention well beyond literary studies; his Sòngshǐ biography is one of the longest in lièzhuàn 246. Among his correspondents in the collection are Pān Lǎng 潘閬 (the Jì Zhāng Yǒng poems were exchanges with this Zhāng) and Lín Bū 林逋.
Links
- Zhang Yong (Wikipedia)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.1 (Sòng biéjí); §44 (Sòng monetary history).