Luánjīng záyǒng 灤京雜咏
Miscellaneous Verses on the Luán Capital by 楊允孚 (撰)
About the work
A single-juǎn sequence of 108 seven-character regulated poems by Yáng Yǔnfú 楊允孚 of Jíshuǐ on the Yuán summer capital Shàngdū 上都 (the Khanid summer residence on the Luán river 灤水 in modern Inner Mongolia, conventionally also called Luánjīng 灤京 in Yuán usage). The number is rounded as “bǎiyǒng” (Hundred Verses) but is in fact 108. Each poem has the author’s own zìzhù (auto-gloss). The work’s principal documentary value is that it preserves much information about Yuán court ritual, summer-progress, supply, food culture, and ethnography that does not appear in the Yuán shǐ or Jīngshì dàdiǎn. The Sìkù tíyào compilers identify the form as descending from the Táng poet Wáng Jiàn 王建’s Gōngcí (palace verses) but place its emotional register alongside Mèng Yuánlǎo’s Dōngjīng mènghuá lù, Wú Zìmù’s Mèngliáng lù, and Zhōu Mì’s Wǔlín jiùshì — i.e. the Sòng tradition of post-fall nostalgic recall of a lost capital.
Tiyao
Luánjīng záyǒng, 1 juǎn. By Yáng Yǔnfú of the Yuán. Yǔnfú, style-name Héjí, was a man of Jíshuǐ. His start and end are unknown. The collection’s back has Luó Dàyǐ’s bá saying: “Mr. Yáng went in bùyī (cotton-clothes commoner garb) with his bedroll on his back, traveling ten thousand lǐ a year, exhausting the Western-Northern marvels — every landscape, every product, every regulation, every custom — all by yǒnggē (verse-song) recorded.” Yǔnfú would seem then to be a non-office-holder. But the forty-ninth piece’s gloss states: “On every tāngyáng (mutton-broth) imperial meal sixteen meals’ worth are prepared; the surplus is bestowed on the left-and-right ministers, every day so. I once served in the kitchen-of-bestowal, so I know its details” — so he was a Shùn-dì-period palace-kitchen supply official, not a wandering literatus. Further, the last few pieces include: (a) “The palace-eunuch — what year? — every thought extinguished; / his hair-coronet startles me — temples bristling-bristling. / Stoking the lamp, he tells the affairs of the former court; / The traveler’s rosy face withers in one night.” (b) “Forcing myself to drown sorrow in one cup of wine; / unloosing the saddle, idly reading the old shrine-stele; / Of Jūyōng’s ten years’ rise-and-fall, / only the moonlight of mid-Heaven knows.” (c) “Trying to write down past events from the head; / aged temples and traveler’s robe — all is grief. / In heaven and on earth — now and once again — / Luán-river — guard it well — its water flows long.” So this collection was composed after his entry into the Míng. Its poetry is 108 pieces, titled “Hundred Verses” by approximation. The title Luánjīng refers to the Luán river passing south of the Shàngdū city, hence the Yuán-period usage. The poems record the Yuán dynasty’s summer-progress ceremonies — much that the shǐ does not detail — and the auto-glosses below are likewise comprehensive. The form is from Wáng Jiàn’s Gōngcí, but the gùgōng héshǔ (millet-and-mallow-of-the-old-palace) emotion is the same as Mèng Yuánlǎo’s Dōngjīng mènghuá lù, Wú Zìmù’s Mèngliáng lù, and Zhōu Mì’s Wǔlín jiùshì. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng forty-sixth (1781), eleventh month. Compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; head proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Luánjīng záyǒng is one of the principal sources for the Yuán court’s summer residence at Shàngdū / Luánjīng (the Mongol-period summer capital on the Luán river, modern Inner Mongolia). The collection’s documentary load is high: each poem is accompanied by the author’s auto-gloss, which together preserve detailed information on Yuán court ritual, palace logistics, food culture, ethnic diversity at court, and the annual northern-progress that was central to Yuán administrative practice. The Sìkù compilers explicitly position it as the Yuán equivalent of the Sòng jiùdū huíyì (recollections of the lost capital) genre — Mèng Yuánlǎo etc. — and read the post-1368 yílǎo pieces as a documentary anchor for that comparison. The catalog meta provides no dates; the internal evidence (Yáng’s palace-kitchen role under Shùndì + post-1368 retrospective pieces) places Yáng’s active life roughly 1340–1380. Modern historians (Charles Boxer, Frederick Mote, Morris Rossabi) have all drawn on this work; it is also a standard primary source for Yuán food and material culture (see e.g. studies of Yuán-period huíhuí cuisine).
Translations and research
- The collection has been translated/excerpted in modern Chinese scholarship on Yuán Shàng-dū.
- Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan and The Mongols and Global History, treats Yuán Shàng-dū with reference to this and similar primary documents.
- Frederick W. Mote, Imperial China 900–1800, draws on this collection.
Other points of interest
- The work is one of the few Yuán texts to preserve detailed information about the palace-kitchen supply chain (the tāngyáng mutton allocation in poem 49 is a much-cited example).
- The poems also document the multi-ethnic character of the Yuán court — including Tibetan, Uyghur, and West-Asian elements — and are therefore foundational for studies of Yuán huíhuí and sèmù presence at the capital.
Links
- WYG SKQS V1219.6, p617.