Qīngzhèng cúngǎo 清正存稿
Surviving Drafts of [Master] Qīngzhèng by 徐鹿卿 (撰)
About the work
A six-juàn (plus one juàn of supplementary appendix) collection of memorials, decree-responses, and policy essays by the Lǐ-zōng-era reformist Xú Lùqīng 徐鹿卿 (1189–1250), with title taken from Xú’s posthumous canonization (Qīngzhèng 清正). Reconstituted in the late Míng (Wànlì) by his twelfth-generation descendant Xú Jiàn 徐鑒 from the family genealogy.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Qīngzhèng cúngǎo, six juàn with one juàn of appendix, was composed by Xú Lùqīng of the Sòng. Lùqīng, zì Défū 德夫, hào Quángǔ 泉谷, was a man of Fēngchéng 豐城. He took his jìnshì in Jiādìng 16 (1223), rose through office to Vice-Minister of Rites, and retired as Auxiliary Academician of the Huáwén Hall, with the canonization Qīngzhèng. His doings are in his Sòngshǐ biography. His writings included the Quángǔ wénjí, the Zòuyì jiǎngyì 奏議講義, the Yán Chǔ yìzhèng gǎo 鹽楮議政稿, and the Lìguān duìyuè jí 厯官對越集 — all now scattered. The present text is what his twelfth-generation descendant Jiàn 鑒, when serving as Inspecting Censor of Fújiàn in the Wànlì era, gathered from the family genealogy and printed.
Lùqīng was widely versed in Classics and Histories, lived as official in modest probity and clean rigour, and was full of acts of beneficence; whatever he memorialized was prompted by loyal sincerity, not in the least obscured. Today we observe in the collection: when fire struck the capital, his memorial denouncing seduction by favourite consorts, indulgence in private pleasure, and use of petty men — three charges; when promoted to Erudite of the Directorate of Education, his audience-speech setting forth six matters such as washing away ordinary corruption and clarifying reward and punishment; when promoted to Vice-Minister of the Court of the Imperial Treasury, his audience-speech treating such matters as fixing the dynastic foundation, rectifying the great net, and establishing the model. All in general are sincere, candid, and trenchantly accurate to the accumulated ills of the time. Liú Kèzhuāng 劉克莊 commended him with the formula “the purity of Master Dǒng [Zhòngshū], the practicality of Master Jiǎ [Yì]” 董子之醇,賈生之通; though such laudatory phrases cannot but slightly overshoot, his pure loyalty and shining principle leave nothing to be ashamed of when measured against the ancients, and he is certainly not to be compared with those who win names by mere assumed vehemence.
Respectfully collated, third month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781).
[Note: there is a punctuation marker &KR0548;切 in the source, which appears to be an editorial entity for 真摯諫切 — preserved here as an emendation marker only.]
The original preface (Yuánxù) by Xú Jíděng 徐即登 (Wànlì-era descendant of Xú Lùqīng) follows the tíyào, framing Xú Lùqīng alongside his clansman Xú Jīngsūn 徐經孫 (號 Jǔshān 矩山, signator of Hall of the Bachelors) as the family’s two great Lǐ-zōng-era statesmen, recounting Xú Lùqīng’s principal policy memorials and his alignment with Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀 (the “Xīshān 西山 master”), and recording that the present compilation was prepared in conjunction with a parallel collection of Xú Jǐngsūn’s writings.
Abstract
The collection is the unique surviving testimony of Xú Lùqīng, all his other compilations (Quángǔ wénjí, Zòuyì jiǎngyì, Yán Chǔ yìzhèng gǎo, Lìguān duìyuè jí) having been lost between the late Sòng and the late Míng. The Wànlì-era reconstitution by Xú Jiàn — informed by the family-genealogy niánpǔ — preserves predominantly Xú’s memorials and decree-responses, the genres for which he was especially famous in his own day. The composition bracket runs from his jìnshì (1223) to his death in 1250. Three groups of memorials are central: (1) the post-fire 1232 capital memorial denouncing imperial intimacies and the use of petty men; (2) his audience-speech as Erudite of the Directorate of Education; and (3) his audience-speech as Vice-Minister of the Treasury, in which his radical proposal — to “use the model of King Goujian of Yuè to deal with present-day Jiāngnán” 以越王勾踐之規模用今日東南之天下 — became proverbial. His friendship with 劉克莊 (Liú Kèzhuāng) and Zhēn Déxiù is foregrounded throughout. CBDB confirms 1189–1250. The work is not separately listed in Wilkinson, but is treated in the standard surveys of late-Sòng Dàoxué officialdom.
Translations and research
- Xú Lùqīng, Qīngzhèng cún-gǎo, modern reprints in the Yǐngyìn Wényuān-gé Sì-kù quán-shū and the Sì-kù quán-shū jīng-huá series.
- Discussion of Xú in surveys of Lǐ-zōng-era reformism (e.g., Davis, Court and Family in Sung China).
- No substantial Western-language monograph located.
Other points of interest
The line “use the model of King Goujian of Yuè to deal with present-day Jiāngnán” is a striking instance of post-1234 (post-fall-of-Jīn) revivalist rhetoric in late-Sòng court discourse — a frank acknowledgement that the Sòng position had become equivalent to that of an early-Spring-and-Autumn rump state seeking eventual restoration.
Links
- WYG SKQS V1178.11, p805.
- CBDB person 25776
- Sòngshǐ juàn 424 (Xú Lùqīng biog.).