Zhào Kǎogǔ wénjí 趙考古文集
The Prose Collection of Zhào Kǎo-gǔ by 趙撝謙 (撰)
About the work
Zhào Kǎogǔ wénjí 趙考古文集 in two juǎn is the surviving literary collection of Zhào Huīqiān 趙撝謙 (1351–1395), original name Zhào Gǔzé 趙古則, hào Kǎogǔ 考古, native of Yúyáo 餘姚 (modern Níngbō, Zhèjiāng). Zhào is better known as the early-Míng paleographer of KR1j0043 Liùshū běnyì 六書本義 — a Shuōwén reduction system — than as a biéjí author; the Sìkù editors’ own assessment is that his literary collection is a slight by-product of his philological main work. The original verse collection Kǎogǔ quánshì 考古銓事 in (per Huáng Zōngxī 黃宗羲) some thousand poems is wholly lost; only ten-odd poems and fifty-odd prose pieces survive. The text is a Qīng Shùnzhì dīngyǒu (1657) descendant-reconstruction prefaced by Huáng Shìchūn 黃世春, with appended “remembered words” (yíyán 遺言) in sixteen items and a packet of correspondence relating to a descendant’s petition to restore the original Zhào surname (Zhào’s youngest son had fled to Qióngzhōu 瓊州 after his death and taken his mother’s surname Wú 吳).
Tiyao
The Zhào Kǎogǔ wénjí — by Zhào Huīqiān of the Míng. Huīqiān has the Liùshū jīnyì 六書今義, already entered in the catalog. The Míngshīzōng 明詩綜 quotes Huáng Zōngxī 黃宗羲 as saying that his verse collection bears the name Kǎogǔ quánshì, in all a thousand poems, not transmitted in the world. Today, examining Jiāo Hóng 焦竑’s Guóshǐ jīngjí zhì, Huīqiān’s collection is not entered there; Huáng Yújì 黃虞稷’s Qiānqǐngtáng shūmù lists the name but gives no juǎn number — so neither saw the original, and it is reliable that it had not been transmitted for long. This copy records only ten-odd poems, and the gǔwén is only fifty-odd pieces. At the front there is a preface by Huáng Shìchūn 黃世春 dated Shùnzhì dīngyǒu (1657), who says: “His descendants have grown weak indeed, yet they are able to record his surviving collection — passing in and out of book-collectors’ hands — perhaps Heaven means by this to bring his investigation of antiquity to light.” So this was simply the work of his descendants, picking up dispersed fragments and binding them together again. Attached after the collection are yíyán in sixteen items; also recorded are letters from his descendant zhūshēng Hù 頀 to Qióngzhōu cānzhèng Jiāng [姜] requesting permission to restore the [Zhào] surname, and several letters of correspondence with the lineage at Zhèzhōng. The story: after Huīqiān’s death his young son was a sojourner in Hǎinán, depending on the maternal family, and impersonated the surname Wú. So Hù petitioned Jiāng to restore [Zhào]. Also appended at the end is Huīqiān’s Zàohuà jīnglún tú 造化經綸圖. The arrangement is quite without order — yet in earlier printings, transmitted by descendants attached to the ancestor or fathers attached to children, similar practice has been common since Sòng and Yuán; making a literary collection serve as a family genealogy is a poor convention long inherited. So this is no innovation of the present compiler. Huīqiān made his name in xiǎoxué 小學 (philology), not particularly in literary composition. This copy preserves only fragmentary residue and need not have his finest; yet in conception and undulation there remains some antique method — clearly distinguishable from one merely copying yǔlù — and this is because he had genuine learning at root. Compiled and presented respectfully in the fifth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778).
Abstract
Zhào Huīqiān’s lifedates 1351–1395 are confirmed by CBDB (id 34382). His literary collection occupies a marginal place in his oeuvre — his fame rests on the KR1j0043 Liùshū běnyì which reduced Xǔ Shèn 許慎’s 540 Shuōwén radicals to 360 and is one of the foundational pre-Qīng works of late-imperial paleography. The early career: summoned in Hóngwǔ to participate in the compilation of the Hóngwǔ zhèngyùn 洪武正韻; out of step with the consensus, he was sent out as Zhōngdū diǎnbù 中都典簿 and then as jiàoyù 教諭; finally appointed Qióngshān xiàn jiàoyù 瓊山縣教諭 in Hǎinán, where he died in 1395. The Hǎinán terminal post explains the otherwise-puzzling descendant-letters in this collection: his orphan son and grandson took the Wú surname of the maternal Hǎinán family for over two generations, and the early-Qīng petition to restore the Zhào surname (preserved here in the appended correspondence) is a rare documentary witness to a late-imperial fùxìng 復姓 process.
The descendant-reconstruction is unusually well-attested: Huáng Shìchūn 黃世春 (a Yúyáo / Níngbō literatus of the early Qīng) wrote the 1657 preface; the yíyán and the appended Zàohuà jīnglún tú — Zhào’s diagrammatic cosmology, more usually associated with Shào Yōng 邵雍 / Yìtú lineage works than with a literary collection — are testimony to the family’s effort to preserve any surviving fragment of an ancestor whose philological reputation outweighed his literary one. Wilkinson, Chinese History, §28.4, does not foreground Zhào’s literary collection but cites the Liùshū běnyì as a key Míng paleographic work; the biéjí should be read as ancillary to his philology.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976. Entry on Zhào Huī-qiān (vol. 1, pp. 132–133).
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §16 (paleography); §28.4 (Míng bié-jí).
Other points of interest
The appended correspondence concerning the restoration of the Zhào surname after two generations under the maternal Wú surname in Hǎinán — and the addition of Zhào’s own diagrammatic cosmological work Zàohuà jīnglún tú 造化經綸圖 — illustrate a recurrent late-imperial pattern by which biéjí compiled by descendants serve as functional family archives. The Sìkù editors flag the jiādié function as “lòulì 陋例” (a poor convention).
Links
- Sìkù tíyào, Kyoto Zinbun digital edition
- Zhao Huiqian (Wikipedia, Chinese)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).