Cuìwēi nánzhēng lù 翠微南征錄
Cuì-wēi’s Southern-Campaign Record by 華岳 (撰)
About the work
Cuìwēi nánzhēng lù 翠微南征錄 in 11 juǎn is the surviving collection of Huá Yuè 華岳 (zì Zǐxī 子西, hào Cuìwēi 翠微), a Southern Sòng wǔxué (military academy) student turned anti-establishment political pamphleteer who was killed by chief councillor Shǐ Míyuǎn 史彌遠. The collection is so titled because its first juǎn is the Kāixǐ 1 (1205) memorial to the throne advocating the execution of Hán Tuōzhòu 韓侂冑 and Sū Shīdàn 蘇師旦, while the remaining 10 juǎn are poems composed during Huá’s subsequent banishment to Jiànníng 建寧 (the “nánzhēng” — “southern campaign” — of the title, a euphemism for the southward exile). Cuìwēi 翠微 is Huá’s biéhào. The text is principal historical source-material for late-Sòng intellectual dissent: Huá Yuè was, with Chén Dōng 陳東 and Ōuyáng Chè 歐陽澈, one of a recognizable type of “wǔxué / tàixué” student-protester executed for political speech.
The famous Cuìwēi běizhēng lù 翠微北征錄 (Cuìwēi’s Northern-Campaign Record) — Huá Yuè’s separate military treatise — is NOT included in this Sìkù recension. The běizhēng lù survives independently; the nánzhēng lù (this collection) is the literary-political collection alone.
Tiyao
[Translated from the Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào 0339901; the local Kanripo source uses the SBCK base and supplies only the Sòngshǐ biography excerpt, not the tíyào.]
Cuìwēi nánzhēng lù in 11 juǎn. Edition: the household-held copy of editor Wāng Rúzǎo.
By Huá Yuè of the Sòng. Yuè’s zì was Zǐxī, a man of Guìchí 貴池 (vouched-for by Wáng Shìzhēn’s reading; modern Chízhōu, Anhui). He was a wǔxué student. In the Kāixǐ 1 [1205] he memorialized the throne requesting the execution of Hán Tuōzhòu and Sū Shīdàn; [the memorial was] sent to the Dàlǐsì (Court of Judicial Review) for trial, [and Huá] was biānguǎn (penal-banished) to Jiànníng. After Hán Tuōzhòu was executed [Huá] was released and returned, and passed the jìnshì military examination first-place; he became Diànqiánsī guān; later he plotted to remove the chief councillor Shǐ Míyuǎn, but the matter was discovered and [he was] sent to the Línān prison and beaten to death [杖死].
His collection is named Nánzhēng — these are entirely [poems and pieces composed during] his exile-banishment to Jiànníng. Cuìwēi is his biéhào. This recension’s juǎnshǒu uses Wáng Shìzhēn’s 王士禎 [Wáng Yǔyáng’s] foreword-note, which says: “Sòng Huá Yuè’s collection in 11 juǎn, named Cuìwēi nánzhēng lù. The 1st juǎn is the Kāixǐ 1 memorial to the emperor, requesting the execution of Hán Tuōzhòu and Sū Shīdàn — its language is the most stalwart and direct. The remaining 10 juǎn of poems are [stylistically] all coarsely-bold, free with qì. The poem Sent to Tuōzhòu says: ‘The English-spirits of the Ten Temples solemnly are still here / [Vainly toward] the zōngshè (state altars) acting as a wall-burglar’ (i.e., a thief). And after [Tuōzhòu] was executed and his head boxed in tribute-for-peace, [Huá] further has the poem: ‘Going against the [policy of] Hàn one must know it for Cháo Cuò / [Trying] to perfect the [policy of] Qín perhaps cannot be by [the assassin] Yúràng’. — All [these] do not flatter or echo the empty-talk; he is a man of the lineage of Chén Dōng. Such poems as Huá’s, one cannot judge by craft-or-clumsiness.”
[Wáng] Shìzhēn’s particular argument is reasonable. Shìzhēn furthermore cites the Wúxìng zhǎnggù (Wúxīng tales-and-events): “Cuìwēi jí by Huá Lián 華廉 zì Zhòngqīng 仲清 — composer.” [Wáng] does not know on what authority this rests. We note: Yuè’s name is on the histories’ rolls; this collection is also recorded in the Yìwén zhì, illuminated and beyond doubt. Huá Lián’s Cuìwēi jí, if it exists, must be a separate person and a separate book — it is not to be confused with Yuè’s collection. Shìzhēn merely recorded it for keeping-of-doubt — but failed in his judgment.
Abstract
Cuìwēi nánzhēng lù survives in 11 juǎn: 1 juǎn of memorials and 10 juǎn of shī. The dating bracket is 1205 (the Kāixǐ 1 memorial requesting Hán Tuōzhòu’s execution, the precipitating event of Huá’s exile and the bulk of the collection’s poems) through ca. 1221 (Huá Yuè’s death by beating after his second imprisonment for plotting against Shǐ Míyuǎn — the standard date for his execution is Jiādìng 14, 1221). The collection’s distribution: juǎn 1 is the original 1205 memorial; juǎn 2–11 are Jiànníng exile poems, ca. 1206–08.
The Sìkù editors’ tíyào defends the textual integrity of the collection against a misattribution circulated by Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎 (Yǔyáng): a Wúxìng zhǎnggù claim that the Cuìwēi jí is by one Huá Lián 華廉 of Wúxìng, zì Zhòngqīng. The tíyào correctly observes that Huá Yuè (CBDB 30222) is well-attested in the Sòngshǐ and Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì — and any Huá Lián must be a different person.
The historical importance of the work is in two distinct registers. First, the Kāixǐ 1 memorial against Hán Tuōzhòu is one of the few surviving full-text contemporary critiques of the HánTuōzhòu factional regime — most contemporary critiques have to be reconstructed from later historiography. Second, the Jiànníng exile poems contain pointed political satire (notably the couplet on Cháo Cuò 晁錯 and Yúràng 豫讓 attacking the post-Hán-Tuō-zhòu peace-by-tribute policy) that the Sìkù editors regard as belonging to the Chén Dōng lineage of student-dissent.
The famous Cuìwēi běizhēng lù 翠微北征錄 — Huá Yuè’s separate military treatise of 14 juǎn, an important Sòng-period work on frontier defense — is not included in this Sìkù biéjí recension. The two works (nánzhēng lù, běizhēng lù) circulated separately; the běizhēng lù is preserved in Tōngzhìtáng cóngshū and other collectanea, and is the document for which Huá Yuè is principally known to specialists in Sòng military history. The Sìkù editors here treat only the literary-political collection.
Translations and research
- 莫礪鋒. 1996. 南宋詩人華岳論. Wén-xué yí-chǎn 1996.
- 楊樹藩. 南宋史研究集. (covers Huá Yuè in the late-Sòng dissent context).
- 王曾瑜. 宋朝兵制初探. Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 1983. Discusses the Cuìwēi běi-zhēng lù (separate work) for Sòng frontier-defense theory.
- Quán Sòng shī 全宋詩 collects Huá Yuè’s poetry from this Sì-kù recension.
- 陳玉龍 et al. 2003. “華岳《翠微北征錄》研究.” 軍事歷史研究 (Jūnshì Lìshǐ Yánjiū) 2003. (On the bei-zheng lu, the separate military treatise.)
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located on the nán-zhēng lù specifically.
Other points of interest
The death-narrative — Huá Yuè was beaten to death (zhàngsǐ in the eastern market of Línān) for his second plot against Shǐ Míyuǎn — is unusually graphic for the Sòngshǐ. The Sòngshǐ says Lǐzōng (i.e., Níngzōng — the Kanripo source-file at KR4d0318_000.txt gives 寧宗) wished to spare him, but Shǐ Míyuǎn responded “This is the man who would have killed me” and pressed for execution. (The Kanripo source-file at KR4d0318_000.txt preserves only this Sòngshǐ biographical excerpt; the actual tíyào is from the WYG version, accessible via the Zinbun digitization at 0339901.)