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文溪集

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Text ID
KR4d0345
Date
1227–1257
Dynasty
宋

Wénxī jí 文溪集

Collected works of [Lǐ] Wenxi by 李昴英 (撰)

About the work

Twenty-juan literary collection of Lǐ Màoyīng 李昴英 (Jùnmíng 俊明, hào Wénxī 文溪, 1201–1257), Sòng bǎngyǎn (second-place at the diànshì of Bǎoqìng 3 = 1227) and the most distinguished native of the Lingnan capital Pānyú 番禺 (Guǎngzhōu 廣州) of his generation. The collection contains 122 prose pieces (memorials and miscellaneous essays) and 125 shī and cí poems. Compiled and printed by his pupil Lǐ Chūnsǒu 李春叟 in Zhìyuán 31 (1294 — jiǎwǔ), with a preface dated to Zhōngyuánjié of that year; further prefaces by Chén Dàzhèn 陳大震 (1298) and the great Míng Confucian Chén Xiànzhāng 陳獻章 (1430–1500) accompany the Chénghuà (1465–1487) recutting that supplied the present Sìkù exemplar.

Tiyao

A respectful submission. Wénxī jí in twenty juan, by the Sòng [author] Lǐ Màoyīng. Màoyīng, zì Jùnmíng, of Pānyú; took third place at the palace examination of Bǎoqìng 3 (1227). At the start of Chúnyòu (1241–) he rose to Editor of the Hall of the Dragon Diagram, then Vice Director of the Ministry of Personnel; he retired and died, with the canonical name Zhōngjiǎn 忠簡. Wénxī is the name of the place to which he retired. Zhāng Duānyì’s 張端義 Guìěr jí records that on his first appointment as Tīngzhōu 汀州 supernumerary, Chén Xiàoyán 陳孝嚴 incited a soldier mutiny; he gave out his whole household property to settle them. That [the rebellion] of Zēng Yěfèng 曾冶鳳, prefect of Guǎng-[zhōu], having stirred Zēng Zhōng’s mutiny, with Cuī Júpō 崔菊坡 — guarding the city — borrowing the Jīnglüèshǐ seal as a pacificatory token, [the prefect] Lǐ rappelled down the city wall to enter the rebel camp and explain to them the consequences of good and evil; the city of Wǔyáng [Guǎngzhōu] was thus saved entire. The rebels were captured at Zhàoqìng. The court rewarded his merit and granted him first place [in court promotion], appointing him Tutor of the Princely Court of Róng; he firmly refused to take up the office, saying only “Without prior learning I cannot change my temper” — a saying upright opinion approved. So Màoyīng had practical talent for managing affairs and could yet stand alone — there was good reason for the empire-shaking force of his impeachments of Shǐ Sōngzhī 史嵩之 and Zhào Yǔ-□ 趙與□. The present collection was compiled in the Zhìyuán (1264–1294) period of the Yuán by his pupil Lǐ Chūnsǒu 李春叟 — 122 prose pieces (memorials and miscellanies) and 125 poems and cí lyrics. In Chénghuà (1465–1487) of our own dynasty it was recut, with a preface by Chén Xiànzhāng 陳獻章. His prose is solid and crisp like the man himself; his verse occasionally uses coarse and vulgar expression, never departs from the Sòng style, but its skeleton remains hard, and is by no means the soft and listless music. Words being the voice of the heart, his uprightness is naturally not concealed. Submitted reverentially, Qiánlóng 47, tenth month [November 1782]. Editors-in-chief Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; chief collator Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

Lǐ Màoyīng is the first major Lingnan literatus of national rank in the Sòng. Born to a Pānyú 番禺 (Guǎngzhōu 廣州) family of modest standing, he took the jìnshì in Bǎoqìng 3 (1227) at age 27, placing third in the diànshì (the bǎngyǎn position). His early career as a Tīngzhōu tuīguān and his courageous descent (literally rappelling down the city wall) into a mutineer camp to rescue Guǎngzhōu became part of his myth: the moves are recorded both in Zhāng Duānyì’s Guìěr jí 貴耳集 and in Lǐ Chūnsǒu’s preface to the present collection. He was a court-rank official at Línān: a bǎngyǎn turned remonstrator who impeached Shǐ Sōngzhī (1189–1257) and Zhào Yǔzé 趙與澤, retired in the late 1240s, and lived out his last decade at Wénxī, his retreat near Guǎngzhōu. He was canonized as Zhōngjiǎn 忠簡 (“loyal-uncomplicated”) posthumously.

The Cantonese line “梅花清似玉，一畨香要一畨寒” (“plum blossoms cleanlike jade — one round of fragrance demands one round of cold”), composed for Lǐ on the occasion of his departure from court office by the Three Schools’ students, is repeatedly cited in Cantonese gazetteer literature as the founding image of the Yuè literatus. The collection’s afterlife is itself instructive: most of his work was lost in a fire (“the Shí’èrlóu 十二樓 which fell into the Kūnmíng Disaster”), and what survived (as Lǐ Chūnsǒu reports) is only what could be retrieved from his family’s holdings. Catalog dates 1201–1257 are confirmed by CBDB (id 17116). On his place in the Lingnan canon see Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §57 on Guǎngdōng provincial historiography and the cluster of Lingnan reference works.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language monograph located. For Chinese-language treatment: Yáng Bǎo-lín 楊寶霖, Lǐ Mào-yīng yánjiū 李昴英研究 (Guǎngdōng rén-mín, 1989), the standard study; the entry in Lǐng-nán wén-kù 嶺南文庫 series (Guǎng-dōng rén-mín, 2009 ed.) which reprints the Wén-xī jí with collation; and the introductory matter of Quán-Sòng wén vol. 350 and Quán-Sòng cí (under his name).

Other points of interest

The collection is one of the earliest body-of-work testimonies to the rise of the Lingnan-trained Sòng literatus. The Míng Chénghuà preface by Chén Xiànzhāng (1430–1500) — himself the founder of the Báishā 白沙 school of Míng xīnxué and a fellow Pānyú native — explicitly frames Lǐ Màoyīng as a moral predecessor and is one of the earliest substantial Lingnan-self-conscious literary genealogical statements.

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