Dàoxiāng jí 道鄉集
The Dào-xiāng (Way-Native-Place) Collection by 鄒浩 (撰)
About the work
Dàoxiāng jí 道鄉集 in 40 juǎn (poetry 14, prose 26) preserves the writings of Zōu Hào 鄒浩 (1060–1111), Chángzhōu jìnshì of Yuánfēng 5 / 1082 and noted Yuán-fú-period remonstrator. The title takes Zōu’s hào Dàoxiāng 道鄉. Edited by Zōu’s sons Bǐng 柄 and Xǔ 栩, with a preface by Lǐ Gāng 李綱 李綱. The cardinal interest of the collection is the Yuánfú 2 / 1099 memorial against the imperial installation of Liúhòu — for which Zōu was biānguǎn at Xīnzhōu 新州 (Guǎngdōng) and his original draft burned. The text in Dàoxiāng jí derives from Huīzōng’s shílù (verifiable record), since under Huīzōng’s first reign Cài Jīng had forged a substitute memorial and shown it as Zōu’s own.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào: Dàoxiāng jí 40 juǎn, by Zōu Hào of the Sòng. Hào, zì Zhìwán, of Chángzhōu Jìnlíng. Jìnshì of Yuánfēng 5; office to Zhí Lóngtúgé; granted Bǎowéngé xuéshì; canonised Zhōng. Career details in his Sòng shǐ biography. This collection is what his sons Bǐng and Xǔ compiled — 14 juǎn of poetry, 26 of prose. Lǐ Gāng once prefaced it; this běn lacks [Lǐ’s preface]. Dōngdū shìlüè records Hào’s collection in 30 juǎn — likely also subsequent persons divided it. Hào in Yuánfú 2 because of the memorial remonstrating lì Liúhòu (the empress-installation of Liúhòu) was registered-and-confined at Xīnzhōu; at the time the draft was already burned. At the start of Huīzōng, Cài Jīng re-prosecuted Hào’s case, seeking the memorial — could not get it — therefore forged a Hào memorial and presented it. The present collection has the original memorial in full — taken out of the Huīzōng shílù Hàozhuàn. The collection records 4 memorials altogether; but Lǐ Tāo’s Chángbiān still has a Yuánfú 1 memorial On the Executive-Cabinet’s Discord, not in the collection. Also discussing Zhāng Dūn — 4 memorials altogether, the collection has only 3. And the Gāo Qiú zhuǎnguān (Gāo Qiú promotion-edict) — preserved and not deleted — when compiled, the gathering was not yet complete, taking-and-discarding also not entirely apt.
Bǐng and others’ woodblocks were already destroyed by the end of the Sòng. In Míng Chénghuà, his yìsūn (descendant) Zōu Liàng got the nèigé manuscript. In Wànlì, Qián-táng-magistrate Zōu Zhōngyǔn — also of Hào’s lineage — re-cut and circulated. Wáng Shìzhēn’s Jūyìlù praises his gǔshī resembling Bái Jūyì, lǜshī resembling Yè Mèngdé; further says he received learning at Chéng’s gate but particularly relished Chán-principles, his prose mostly zōngmén yǔ (sectarian-monastic language). The Kuòcāng Yìzhuàn xù admiration for Wáng Ānshí’s learning is also bó (mixed) and not chún (pure). [Yet] Hào’s great character may be called bù kuì shīmén (not unworthy of his teacher’s gate). Small differences in yǔyán wénzì are insufficient to be a burden — what he learned was here not there. To attack on this basis is also bù chuǎi qí běn (not measuring the root). Qiánlóng 43 (1778), 4th month, respectfully collated.
Abstract
Dàoxiāng jí is a foundational political-document biéjí of the Yuánfú / Chóngníng transition. Zōu Hào’s Yuánfú 2 / 1099 memorial against the empress-installation of Liúhòu is one of the canonical Northern-Sòng remonstrance documents, comparable to Sīmǎ Guāng’s yánshì on the New Policies or Fàn Chúnrén’s yíbiǎo. The political stakes — Zōu’s burning of the original draft, Cài Jīng’s later forgery, and the recovery of the original from Huīzōng’s shílù — make this one of the most textually-self-aware political-archive biéjí of the period.
The Sìkù editors’ careful comparison of Lǐ Tāo’s Xù zīzhì tōngjiàn chángbiān (which preserves additional Zōu memorials not in the biéjí) demonstrates the biéjí’s incompleteness even as a record of its author’s documented memorials — a useful cross-checking exercise for archival-historical work.
The Wáng Shìzhēn assessment — Zōu’s gǔshī like Bái Jūyì, his lǜshī like Yè Mèngdé — places him in a distinct Yuánfú-era poetic register, neither SūHuáng nor Jiāngxī, with strong Chán influence (the zōngmén yǔ — sectarian-monastic language). His learning was ChéngYí (Chéng’s school), but his temperament moved toward Chán, with sympathetic engagement of Wáng Ānshí’s Yì-learning — a syncretic intellectual position rare among Yuán-yòu-faction figures.
Lifedates 1060–1111 are confirmed by CBDB and Sòng shǐ j. 345.
Translations and research
- Sòng-shǐ j. 345 — biography.
- Levine, Ari Daniel. Divided by a Common Language: Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China. Hawaii, 2008. Treats Zōu Hào’s remonstrance and the Yuán-fú / Chóng-níng faction politics extensively.
- Smith, Paul Jakov, ed. Cambridge History of China vol. 5 part 1. Background.
- Wáng Shì-zhēn 王士禎, Jū-yì-lù 居易錄 — Qing literary-critical assessment.
Other points of interest
- The recovery of the burned-then-restored memorial from the shílù archive is a model case of Northern-Sòng documentary archaeology and is preserved here as a primary witness.
- Zōu’s ChéngYí discipleship combined with Chán sympathies represents the kind of intellectual syncretism the Yuánfú–Chóngníng generation found ways to articulate before the Southern-Sòng Dàoxué orthodoxy hardened the distinctions.