Hèshān jí 鶴山集
Collection of Master Hèshān by 魏了翁 (撰)
About the work
The collected works of Wèi Liǎowēng 魏了翁 (1178–1237, zì Huáfù 華父, of Qióngzhōu 邛州), one of the two principal voices of the Lǐxué 理學 mainstream in the Lǐzōng reign, alongside his slightly older contemporary Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀. The collection — surviving in the WYG recension as 109 juàn, in some lines (the SBCK based on a Míng Qióngzhōu print) as 110 — preserves Wèi’s full output across genres: ancient and regulated verse, cí, memorials, edicts and ceremonial drafts, xíngzhuàng and epitaphs, treatises, prefaces and colophons, and his enormous body of letter-writing. It is one of the densest single sources for the political, intellectual, and ritual debates of the Jiādìng / Bǎoqìng / Duānpíng / Jiāxī decades (c. 1208–1237).
Tiyao
No tíyào present in the local source file. The Kanripo source for KR4d0305 (file KR4d0305_000.txt) is in fact a Sìbù cóngkān (SBCK) photo-reproduction of a Míng Qióngzhōu 邛州 print collated against a Wúxī Ān Guó 安國 print, not the WYG. The frontmatter consists of the Chúnyòu xīnhài 淳祐辛亥 (1251) preface by Wú Qián 吳潛, the mùlù (table of contents), and a Qīng collector’s note (Jiāqìng era) describing the textual condition of the Sòng print. The WYG tíyào is therefore not available within this Kanripo file. Neither was it retrievable via the Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào server during the present session.
Wú Qián’s preface (paraphrased): “In the winter of Duānpíng 2 [1235], when I, Qián, was prefect of Tàipíng zhōu as Right-Wén-diàn editor, the Lord Wénjǐng [Wèi Liǎowēng] was leading the campaign in Jiānghuái and Jīnghú. He took me into his train, where I was honoured to hear his great compositions and lofty discussions. He often said, ‘Learning must be rooted in the Six Classics — that is right learning; the Way must be rooted in Yáo, Shùn, Yǔ, Tāng, Wén, Wǔ, the Duke of Zhōu, Confucius, and Mèngzǐ — that is the right way.’ On astronomy, geography, ritual, music, calendrical-pitch, official systems, military methods, statutes, and material culture he probed everything to its limit, with the lucidity of distinguishing black from white. Two years later he died and I wept, saying, ‘Heaven has destroyed this culture.’ Fifteen years later again, his sons Jìnsī 近思 and Kèyú 克愚 gathered the surviving manuscripts: a zhèngjí, a wàijí, and a zòuyì, one hundred juàn in all, ready for printing. Wèi Liǎowēng was zì Huáfù, of Hèshān in Qióngzhōu. The realm’s scholars revered him as Master Hèshān.” Dated 4th month of Chúnyòu xīnhài (1251).
A second postscript by a Jiāqìng-era owner records purchasing this Sòng print for sixty taels of silver in the winter of Jiāqìng yuán (1796) from the friend Gù Kāizhī 顧開之, after a previous attempt at a Míng Qióngzhōu reprint had proved unreadable.
Abstract
Wèi Liǎowēng (1178–1237) is, alongside Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀, the principal dàoxué statesman of the Lǐzōng reign. Born at Qióngzhōu in Sìchuān, he took the jìnshì in 1199 (Qìngyuán 5), held a long succession of central and provincial offices including Hànlín Academician and Recorder of Affairs in the Court (zīzhèngdiàn xuéshì), and ended his career on the JiāngHuái military front, dying in active service in 1237. The present collection was assembled fourteen years after his death by his sons Wèi Jìnsī 魏近思 and Wèi Kèyú 魏克愚 from his manuscript remains, prefaced and overseen by his protégé and political ally Wú Qián, and printed at one hundred juàn in the original 1251 division of zhèngjí + wàijí + zòuyì; the WYG editors restructured the surviving text into 109 juàn. The composition window is therefore c. 1196 (date of Wèi’s earliest preserved poems) to 1237 (his death), the bracket adopted here.
Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual §62.6) lists Wèi Liǎowēng among the major Sòng biéjí whose collected works are an indispensable primary source for late-Sòng political and intellectual history, and notes the Hèshān jí alongside the Xīshān jí of Zhēn Déxiù as the joint canonical anchor of mid-Lǐzōng dàoxué. Wèi’s writings are particularly important for: (i) the history of the dàoxué persecution and its rehabilitation after 1224; (ii) Sòng frontier strategy on the Sìchuān and JiāngHuái fronts; (iii) the systematic application of jīngxué (his Jiǔjīng yàoyì 九經要義) to court ritual and policy; (iv) Sòng commemorative biography, since Wèi was one of the most prolific composers of xíngzhuàng and tomb-inscriptions of his generation, and his epitaphs are first-tier sources for the lifedates and offices of dozens of late-Sòng officials.
Translations and research
- James T. C. Liu and Peter K. Bol, articles on Sòng intellectual history make repeated reference to Wèi Liǎowēng’s Hèshān jí as a primary source.
- Wing-tsit Chan (Chén Róngjié) 陳榮捷, Zhū-zǐ mén-rén 朱子門人 (Táibei: Xuésheng, 1982), treats Wèi Liǎowēng’s place in the dào-xué genealogy.
- Sū Bǎi 蘇白, Wèi Hèshān nián-pǔ 魏鶴山年譜 (Sìchuān rénmín, 1985) — standard chronological biography.
- Wèi Liǎowēng wén-jí 魏了翁文集, ed. Lǐ Wén-zé 李文澤 et al. (Sìchuān dàxué, ongoing complete-works critical edition).
- Hilde de Weerdt, Competition over Content: Negotiating Standards for the Civil Service Examinations in Imperial China (1127–1279) (Harvard, 2007) — uses Wèi Liǎowēng’s prefaces and exam-related writings extensively.
- Christian Soffel and Hoyt Tillman, Cultural Authority and Political Culture in China: Exploring Issues with the Zhongyong and the Daotong During the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties (Steiner, 2012) treats Wèi Liǎowēng’s role in the dào-tǒng construction.
- Sòngrén bié-jí xùlù 宋人別集敘錄 (Zhū Shàngshū 祝尚書, rev. 2020), entry on the Hèshān jí.
Other points of interest
The 1235 first edition (printed at Qióngzhōu by Wèi Liǎowēng’s sons under Wú Qián’s supervision) is one of the foundational late-Sòng prints of a contemporary biéjí — the type-specimen for the practice of producing collected works essentially within a generation of the author’s death, framed as monument and political statement. The Qīng collector’s note appended to the SBCK source records the precarious survival of the Sòng print into the early nineteenth century.