Míngshuǐ jí 洺水集
Collection of Míngshuǐ by 程珌 (撰)
About the work
A thirty-juàn collected works of the Southern Sòng official Chéng Bì 程珌 (1164–1242, zì Huáigǔ 懷古, of Xiūníng 休寧), edict-writer and Hànlín academician under the reigns of Níngzōng and Lǐzōng. Chéng’s family traced its origin to Míngzhōu 洺州 in Héběi, whence the studio name “Survivor of Míngshuǐ” (Míngshuǐ yímín 洺水遺民). The collection ranges across the full range of court genres — drafted edicts, memorials, lectures, prefaces, epitaphs, and poetry — and is a substantial source for late-Níngzōng / early-Lǐzōng court politics, the Lǐzōng accession question, and the contested role of Shǐ Mǐyuǎn 史彌遠.
Tiyao
Your servants and others respectfully submit: the Míngshuǐ jí in thirty juàn was composed by Chéng Bì 程珌 of the Sòng. Bì, zì Huáigǔ, was a man of Xiūníng. His ancestors had lived at Míngshuǐ, so he styled himself “Survivor of Míngshuǐ.” During the Shàoxī reign [1190–1194] he attained the jìnshì; he rose through office to Minister of Rites and Hànlín Academician of the Duānmíng Hall, and was posthumously granted the title Junior Preceptor (shǎoshī 少師). At court he made statecraft his charge. Shào Jīngbāng’s 邵經邦 Hóngjiǎn lù 宏簡錄 of the Míng records that he, together with Shǐ Mǐyuǎn, forged an edict to enthrone Lǐzōng and afterwards received the gift of the sealed gold from Empress Yáng, on which account Mǐyuǎn bore him a grudge. But the present collection contains a memorial to the Grand Council criticising the obstruction of communication and the unfairness of the court’s rewards and punishments — by all appearances it was on this account that he ran afoul of Mǐyuǎn, and the Hóngjiǎn lù account is hardly to be trusted. Bì excelled in neither shī nor cí, but his memorials on frontier defence and tax remission show his deep concern for state finance and the people’s hardship and contain matter of consequence. His colophon to Hóng Mài’s 洪邁 Wànshǒu juéjù 萬首絕句 declares it unfit to be presented at court; his colophon to Zhāng Zài’s 張載 Xīmíng 西銘 holds that the desire to restore the well-field system is impractical — he was an upright man who knew the affairs of the world. The original preface states that the collection was originally in sixty juàn, half of which were lost; the present edition was printed in the jǐsì year of Chóngzhēn [1629] by his descendant Chéng Zhìyuǎn 程至遠. Respectfully collated in the fifth month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng [1777]. Chief compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; general collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Chéng Bì’s Míngshuǐ jí survives only in half of its original sixty-juàn form, the present thirty-juàn recension having been re-edited and printed in 1629 (Chóngzhēn 2) by Chéng Zhìyuǎn from a partial Wàn-lì-era reprint that was itself damaged in the 1608 Wùshēn flood. CBDB confirms lifedates 1164–1242. Chéng obtained the jìnshì in 1190 (Shàoxī 1); his career thus spans the period c. 1190–1242, which is the bracket adopted here. The original zìxù preserved at the front (signed Míngshuǐ yímín) and the descendant Chéng Zhìyuǎn’s 1628 preface together provide the textual history. The Sìkù editors decisively reject the Míng-period accusation, found in Shào Jīngbāng’s Hóngjiǎn lù, that Chéng colluded with Shǐ Mǐyuǎn in the Lǐzōng accession (1224) — pointing instead to surviving memorials critical of the chief councillor as evidence that Chéng was, on the contrary, alienated by Shǐ. The collection’s juàn-by-juàn arrangement — edicts, memorials, monographs, prefaces, epitaphs, xíngzhuàng (notably one for Zhū Xī’s circle), through to poetry and yuèfǔ — is the standard biéjí layout. Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual §62.3) lists the Sōngrén biéjí xùlù by Zhū Shàngshū 祝尚書 as the first port of call for Sòng biéjí bibliography, and Zhū’s entry on the Míngshuǐ jí is the standard textual history.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. For Chinese-language scholarship see Zhū Shàngshū 祝尚書, Sòngrén bié-jí xùlù 宋人別集敘錄 (rev. 2020, Zhōnghuá), the relevant entry; and Lǐ Wénzé 李文澤, “Chéng Bì Míngshuǐ jí zhōng de zhì-gào yánjiū” 程珌《洺水集》中的制誥研究, on the value of the drafted edicts in juàn 1 for late-Níngzōng court communication.
Other points of interest
The juàn 9 colophons include important early Sòng critical statements on Hóng Mài’s 洪邁 Wànshǒu Tángrén juéjù 萬首唐人絕句 and on Zhāng Zài’s 張載 Xīmíng 西銘. Chéng’s rejection of the well-field utopianism implicit in Xīmíng is one of the more pointed Sòng-period dissents from the Guān-school 關學 reading.
Links
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11042147 (程珌)
- CBDB id 10755