Hèlín jí 鶴林集
Crane-Grove Collection by 吳泳 (撰)
About the work
Hèlín jí 鶴林集 in 40 juǎn is the biéjí of Wú Yǒng 吳泳 (zì Shūyǒng 叔永, hào Hèlín 鶴林; CBDB 13809), a Southern Sòng official from Tóngchuān 潼川 (Sìchuān). Wú was a Jiādìng 2 (1209) jìnshì; under Lǐzōng he served as qǐjū shèrén and concurrently zhí Xuéshìyuàn, then acting Xíngbù shàngshū, eventually Bǎozhānggé xuéshì and Prefect of Quánzhōu, where he died. The work is a Yǒnglè dàdiǎn reconstruction by the Sìkù editors. Its principal historical value lies in its memorials on Sìchuān defense in the 1229–36 crisis years — the period when Mongol pressure on the Sichuan front was acute — preserving detailed strategic memoranda that supplement the gaps in the Sòngshǐ version of his biography. The catalog records date ‘1209’, marking Wú’s jìnshì year and the start of his composition activity.
Tiyao
The minister-editors respectfully report. Hèlín jí in 40 juǎn by Wú Yǒng of the Sòng. Yǒng’s zì was Shūyǒng, a man of Tóngchuān. Jìnshì of Jiādìng 2 [1209]. In Lǐzōng’s reign he served as qǐjū shèrén concurrently zhí Xuéshìyuàn, then acting Xíngbù shàngshū, ending as Bǎozhānggé xuéshì and Prefect of Quánzhōu. His career is given in his Sòngshǐ biography. The history says he wrote Hèlín jí but does not specify the juǎn count; the Yìwén zhì likewise does not record [it]. Only in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn’s various rhyme-categories are his poetry and prose scattered and visible. We respectfully gathered and put them in order, dividing into 40 juǎn. From this remnant of the lost the volume is still substantial, demonstrating the abundance of his composition.
Yǒng was active during the late-Sòng decline, when treacherous power-holders held positions of authority and the state’s strength was daily ebbing. Alone he was able to use upright speech to confront and turn the edge of Shǐ Míyuǎn, without ever yielding — he may be called an “ancient direct-spoken survivor” (gǔ zhī yízhí). And as for the contemporary disasters of border defense’s neglect: of the mountains-and-rivers, defiles-and-passes, [Yǒng’s] strategic plans and the surveys he laid out were exactingly accurate, his impassioned exposition got at every essential point. The various memorials given in the standard biography are abridged and not detailed; now, examining the present collection, [we find]: in Shàodìng 2 [1229] he submitted Eight Strategies for the West-Frontier (Xīchuí bāyì); in Shàodìng 5 [1232] a memorial on Four Faults and Three Worries (Sìshī sānyōu) and Three Strategies for Preserving Shǔ (BǎoShǔ sāncè); in Duānpíng 2 [1235] a memorial saying that the Mongols had first opened the Chuān-route and afterwards would meet at the south of the Yangtze — therefore the upper-river [Sìchuān–Húběi line] could not but be made firm; in Duānpíng 3 [1236] [a memorial] requesting the early appointment of a Shǔshuài (Sìchuān military governor); and further memorials on Four Witnesses to the Ruin of Shǔ (HuàiShǔ sìzhèng) and Five Strategies for Saving Shǔ (JiùShǔ wǔcè).
Roughly: as to the geographical setup of the western Sìchuān region, [Yǒng’s] discussion is the most lucid. Truly because the Southern Sòng treated Shǔ as the rear-gate of the realm, in geographical-strategic terms it was the most critical pivot — and Yǒng was himself a Shǔ-man, deeply versed in the local geography; therefore what he said hit straight at the joints, not the kind of conjectural-armchair guesswork. He can in fact supplement what the standard history did not preserve. His other memorials, zhāngshū, biǎozòu are also clearly-argued, swift-written; they have something of the manner of the Sū family of Méishān 眉山 [the Sū family of poets/statesmen]. Among the literati of western Shǔ, following Wèi Liǎowēng’s Hèshān jí 鶴山集 KR4d0307, [this collection] yields very little. Qiánlóng 46 [1781], 9th month, respectfully collated.
Abstract
Hèlín jí is the post-Míng Yǒnglè dàdiǎn reconstruction (40 juǎn) of the literary remains of Wú Yǒng (1209 jìnshì; CBDB index year 1178; death by 1245 — supported by the strategic-document chronology in the collection itself ending in Duānpíng 3, 1236, after which Wú’s life is traceable to the Bǎozhānggé xuéshì tenure ending ca. 1244–45). The dating bracket: 1209 to ca. 1245.
The historical-source value of the collection is genuine. The Sìkù editors emphasize its preservation of detailed Sichuan-defense memoranda from the Mongol-pressure crisis period (1229–1236), framed against the Sòngshǐ biography’s compression. Wú Yǒng’s strategic perspective — that of a Shǔ native who understood the Sìchuān terrain as the southern Sòng’s “rear-gate” — adds documentary weight to the question of why the Sìchuān front collapsed in mid-13th century. His Shàodìng 5 Sìshī sānyōu memorial in particular is a rare datable document of internal critical analysis at the moment when the LiánMéng mièJīn policy was being decided.
The Sìkù editors place Wú stylistically in the lineage of the Méishān Sū-family prose tradition (Sū Xún, Sū Shì, Sū Zhé), and rank him as the second-most important Shǔ literatus of the late Sòng after Wèi Liǎowēng 魏了翁 (whose Hèshān jí is KR4d0307). The pairing — Wèi Hèshān, Wú Hèlín — is itself a literary-historical commonplace: both hào are crane-related and both authors are Sìchuān-born late-Sòng critical voices.
Translations and research
- 黃寬重. 南宋史研究集. Taipei: Xīn Wénfēng, 1985. Discusses Wú Yǒng’s Sichuan-defense memorials.
- 吳曉萍. 2008. “吳泳《鶴林集》研究.” 文獻 (Wénxiàn) 2008/3.
- 王水照, ed. 宋代文學通論. Sòng-dài wénxué tōnglùn — covers Wú in the late-Sòng Sichuan-poets section.
- Quán Sòng wén 全宋文 collects Wú Yǒng’s prose comprehensively from this Sì-kù recension.
Other points of interest
The collection’s primary scholarly use is now as a source for the policy-historical reconstruction of the Sòng-Mongol diplomatic-military negotiations of 1232–36, where it preserves contemporary objections to the LiánMéng mièJīn policy that the Sòngshǐ compresses or omits.