楳埜集

Méiyě jí 楳埜集

The Plum-Wilderness Collection by 徐元杰 (撰)

About the work

The collected works of Xú Yuánjié 徐元杰 (1196–1245), zì Rénbó 仁伯, zhuàngyuán of the Shàodìng 紹定 5 (1232) examination and one of the boldest opponents of the Chancellor Shǐ Sōngzhī 史嵩之. The Méiyě jí, reconstituted from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn by the Sìkù editors, preserves Xú’s principal court memorials (notably the Wùxū lúnduì zhá-zi 戊戌輪對劄子 of 1238 and the Jiǎchén shàngdiàn zhá-zi 甲辰上殿劄子 of 1244) together with the bulk of his prose and a single juàn of poetry and lyrics. The collection is biographically inseparable from Xú’s death — almost universally believed by contemporaries to have been by poisoning at the hands of Shǐ Sōngzhī’s clients — and from his short-lived political alliance with Dù Fàn 杜範 in opposing the Chancellor’s qǐfù 起復 (recall to office in mourning). The preserved letters and memorials, along with the long yuánxù 原序 by Zhào Rǔténg 趙汝騰 (1249) included in the WYG front-matter, make the work an unusually direct documentary record of the partisan struggles of the 1240s.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Méiyě jí in twelve juàn was composed by Xú Yuánjié 徐元杰 of the Sòng. Yuánjié, zì Rénbó 仁伯, was a man of Shàngráo 上饒 in Xìnzhōu 信州. He was first-placed jìnshì of Shàodìng 5 (1232), and rose in office to Libationer of the Guózǐjiàn 國子祭酒, acting Drafter of the Secretariat (Zhōngshūshèrén 中書舍人), receiving the appointment of Vice-Minister of Works (Gōngbù shìláng 工部侍郎); posthumous title Zhōngmǐn 忠愍. His career is recorded in his Sòngshǐ biography.

Yuánjié was upright and bold-spoken, fearing no power. When Shǐ Sōngzhī 史嵩之 was being recalled to office (qǐfù 起復), Yuánjié attacked him most strenuously, and in the end the order was halted. Thereafter Yuánjié died suddenly of a violent ailment, and all men held that Sōngzhī had poisoned him. The remonstrance bureaus together with the Imperial Academy students all submitted memorials urging redress; an imperial decree set up an inquiry — but in the end the case could not be cleared. His biography in the Sòngshǐ records the matter at length, and Zhōu Mì’s 周密 Guǐxīn záshí 癸辛雜識 is yet more detailed.

This collection in its old form carried a preface by Zhào Rǔténg 趙汝騰, which also strongly insists on the unaccounted-for nature of his death as cause for grief, and adds that “treacherous men were charged with conducting the trial” — clearly referring to Censor Zhèng Cǎi 鄭寀. Yet according to the Guǐxīn záshí, [Zhèng] Cǎi was in fact the first to memorialize on behalf of Yuánjié, but failed to bring the case to a verdict; that Zhào Rǔténg then turned around and condemned him as a “treacherous and perverse” man only goes to show how at that time the political principals were like fire and water, host and guest changing places, the boiling broth and the screeching cicadas with no settled judgment to be reached. From this single matter the failure of Sòng’s governing framework is plain.

The collection is not listed in the Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì. From the colophon by [Xú] Zhíliàng 直諒, the present text appears to be the printing made by Zhíliàng when he was Prefect of Xìnghuàjūn 興化軍 in Jǐngdìng 2 (1261), originally in twenty-five juàn. The recension has long been lost. We have now taken pieces from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and edited them, restoring it to eleven juàn of miscellaneous prose plus one juàn of poetry and lyrics. Though only some five or six tenths is preserved, the items of the memorials and submissions listed in his biography are all present, and the general outline of his career can be made out.

Within the collection, the Wùxū lúnduì zhá-zi 戊戌輪對劄子 was submitted when he was Editor in the Imperial Library; the Jiǎchén shàngdiàn zhá-zi 甲辰上殿劄子 was submitted when he was Drafter of the Left Secretariat. His arguments — that on the Prince of Jì 濟王 affair an heir ought properly to have been established; that the licentiousness of the [imperial] life should be restrained; that against the foreign enemy the dynastic shrines should be the heart of policy — are all earnestly faithful, conveyed in language warm and direct. His several letters to the Chief of the Left Council on current affairs were composed at the invitation of Dù Fàn 杜範, and likewise bear on the great policy of the state, sparing nothing. Although he had studied with Chén Wénwèi 陳文蔚 and Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀 and may at times have been too rigid in clinging to ancient principles, one cannot say his words departed from the right.

Zhōu Mì in Hàoránzhāi yǎtán 浩然齋雅談 records that Yuánjié’s mother Lady Zhāng 張氏 was capable of poetry, with the line “I know not, beyond the outer screen, the floating-rising moon — to which branch of the plum it has risen”. Yet Yuánjié’s own poetry is rather plain and severe. This is because Zhēn [Déxiù]‘s Wénzhāng zhèngzōng 文章正宗 took such a view of style, and Yuánjié held faithfully to his teacher’s teaching.

Respectfully collated, ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief-Compiler Officers Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; Chief-Collation Officer Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

(The collection also contains a substantial yuánxù by Zhào Rǔténg, dated Chúnyòu jǐyǒu 淳祐己酉 [1249], comparing Xú’s death to those of the Hàn worthies Xiāo Wàngzhī 蕭望之, Lǐ Gù 李固, and Dù Qiáo 杜喬 — all men who died confronting power.)

Abstract

The Méiyě jí is one of the most directly political biéjí of the late Sòng, inseparable from the partisan struggles of the 1240s. Xú Yuánjié (1196–1245) had been the first-placed jìnshì of the 1232 examination — a rare distinction for an outer-circuit Xìnzhōu 信州 candidate — and rose through the central drafting and library bureaus on a reputation for blunt remonstrance, cultivated in his teachers Chén Wénwèi 陳文蔚 (a disciple of Zhū Xī) and Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀. His 1244 Jiǎchén shàngdiàn zhá-zi, opposing Shǐ Sōngzhī’s qǐfù, was credited at the time with stalling the chancellor’s recall to office; Xú died suddenly in the fifth month of 1245, with the symptoms widely read as poisoning (vomiting, fingernails turning black). Both the imperial Censorate and the Imperial Academy students memorialized for an investigation. The case never reached a verdict, and Shǐ Sōngzhī was himself out of office within months.

Date discrepancy note. The catalog meta gives Xú’s dates as 1245–1294, which is in error (likely a transcription confusion with the regnal years of his posthumous honors). Both the local CBDB sqlite dump (person 545959) and standard external sources (Wikidata, Sòngshǐ j. 424 biography, modern Sòng prosopography) consistently give 1196–1245; these are followed here. Note that the Sòngshǐ biography is itself the principal source for the date of death.

The text was first printed in 25 juàn in 1261 by Xú’s son Zhíliàng 直諒 at Xìnghuàjūn. That edition is lost; the present 12-juàn recension is the Sìkù reconstitution from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, preserving the principal memorials but losing roughly half the original prose. The internal cross-reference to Zhōu Mì’s Guǐxīn záshí (the principal documentary witness for the poisoning theory) and to the Chancellor Dù Fàn (who would be made zǎixiàng shortly after the 1244 memorial and die within months of Xú himself) makes the work an essential primary source for the politics of the DuānpíngChúnyòu 端平淳祐 transition.

The dating bracket adopted here (1232–1245) reflects the composition window of the bulk of the writings: from Xú’s jìnshì year to his sudden death.

Translations and research

• Wáng Zhīyǒng 王志勇, “Xú Yuánjié shēng-píng yǔ shī-wén yánjiū” 徐元杰生平與詩文研究, MA thesis, Zhèjiāng dàxué, 2011.
• Zhū Yìbó 朱怡波, “Cóng Méiyě jí kàn Nán-Sòng wǎn-qī de cháoyě dòng-tài” 從《楳埜集》看南宋晚期的朝野動態, Sòng-dài wénhuà yánjiū 宋代文化研究, no. 28 (2019).
• The Sòng-shǐ biography (j. 424) and Zhōu Mì’s Guǐxīn zá-shí together with the Méiyě jí form the basic dossier for the death of Xú Yuánjié; both are extensively cited in Ihara Hiroshi 伊原弘, Sō-dai Kōnan keizaishi no kenkyū 宋代江南經濟史の研究 (Tōkyō, 1988), and in Charles Hartman’s chapters on Lǐ-Dù factional struggle in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 5 part 2.

Other points of interest

The collection’s preservation of Zhào Rǔténg’s preface — and the Sìkù tiyao’s note that Zhōu Mì’s account differs from Zhào’s on the role of Censor Zhèng Cǎi — is a textbook instance of how partisan disagreement in the closing years of the Sòng produced flatly inconsistent accounts of the same events. The Sìkù editors’ willingness to flag the inconsistency, rather than smooth it over, is an instance of the jiǎokān method at its most useful.

The mother’s poem preserved in Hàoránzhāi yǎtán is also one of the few surviving poetic lines by an early-thirteenth-century literati woman of the Xìnzhōu region.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1181.9, p599.
• CBDB person 545959 (Xú Yuánjié)
• Sòngshǐ biography: j. 424.