Lánjiàn jí 藍澗集
The Blue-Vale Collection by 藍智 (撰)
About the work
Lánjiàn jí 藍澗集 in six juǎn is the verse collection of Lán Zhì 藍智, zì Xìngzhī 性之 (uniformly written 明之 in later sources; the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn alone has 性之, which the Sìkù editors take as authoritative on the grounds that the dàdiǎn compilers worked very close to the early Míng); younger brother of Lán Rén 藍仁 (KR4e0036). Native of Chóngān 崇安 (Fújiàn). With his elder brother formed the Èr Lán 二藍, founding generation of the Mǐnzhōng shīpài 閩中詩派. Appointed in Hóngwǔ 10 (1377) on recommendation as Guǎngxī ànchá sī qiānshì 廣西按察司僉事; later returned home and retired. Liú Bǐng 劉炳 (KR4e0035) wrote an Wǎn Lánshì kūnjì shī 輓藍氏昆季詩 lamenting “Holding office jié at Guìlín, returning; high fēng shakes the woods and valleys” — confirming Lán Zhì’s senior service in Guǎngxī. The original collection was lost by mid-Míng (it is absent from Jiāo Hóng 焦竑’s Guóshǐ jīngjí zhì, even where the parallel Lánshān jí of the elder brother is recorded); the Sìkù editors reconstructed it from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, recovering over three hundred poems of both old and modern verse.
Tiyao
The Lánjiàn jí in six juǎn — by Lán Zhì of the Míng. His zì is given in all the various books as 明之 (Míngzhī), but the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn alone titles him 性之 (Xìngzhī); the dàdiǎn is not far from the early Míng and must have had basis — we suspect the 明之 reading is wrong. His record is appended in Míng shǐ Wényuàn zhuàn to Táo Zōngyí 陶宗儀’s biography. It says in Hóngwǔ 10 (1377), on recommendation, he was made Guǎngxī ànchá sī qiānshì and was noted for liánshēng 廉聲 (a reputation for incorruption). The zhìshèng 志乘 (local gazetteers) all fail to record his career. The collection has Shūhuái shī shí shǒu 書懷詩十首 written while in Yuè 粤, sent to his son Yúnsōngqiáo 雲松樵; Zhāng Jǔ 張榘 wrote a postface for it, saying he “carried himself with uprightness and integrity, dispatched affairs with even-handedness; through three years from start to end he committed no fault” — so the history’s word that he was “noted for liánshēng” must have its basis. Liú Bǐng’s collection has an Wǎn Lánshì kūnjì shī with the lines: “At Guìlín he held the jié and returned; high fēng shakes the woods and valleys” — so in his late years he again left office and returned to his village. Zhì’s verse is fresh and graceful, sufficient to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his elder brother; in five-character form, his structure is lofty and elegant, blithely above the dust — though lacking somewhat in heroic vigour, he has surplus jùnyì 雋逸; in seven-character form, his cadence is broken and clear, also without losing the standards of the Táng. With the Lánshān collection [of Lán Rén], the two collections are outstandingly to be called Èr nán 二難 (two paragons). The Jìngzhìjū shīhuà 靜志居詩話 (i.e. Zhū Yízūn’s Shīhuà) says that in the Lánshān and Lánjiàn collections the xuǎnjiā (anthology-makers) confused the brothers’ poems with each other — surely because their styles are similar and could not be distinguished at a glance.
Zhì’s original table is no longer examinable. Looking at Jiāo Hóng’s Jīngjí zhì, only the Lán Jìngzhī jí (i.e. Lán Rén’s collection) is recorded; the Lánjiàn jí alone is not mentioned. So by mid-Míng there were already gaps in the transmission; in recent times no copy has been seen. Therefore Háng Shìjùn 杭世駿’s Róngchéng shīhuà says: “Among the Fújiàn people no one knows the Èr Lán collections. He Qiáoyuǎn 何喬遠’s Mǐnshū 閩書 says Lán Rén has Lánshān jí, Lán Zhì has Lánjiàn jí. Zhúchá 竹垞 [Zhū Yízūn] once selected pieces from them into his Shīzōng, taking them as the founders of the Shízǐ line — the verse school was begun by these two brothers. The collections were originally jointly printed. Jīng Wú Zhuō 吳焯 once bought a Lánshān jí at Sūzhōu — a Hóngwǔ printing with prefaces by Jiǎngshān 蔣山 and Zhāng Jǔ 張榘 — confirming what Zhúchá said. But the Lánjiàn jí he could not buy. Xú Wéihé 徐惟和 in compiling the Jìnān fēngyǎ 晉安風雅 found the Èr Lán missing; so the loss of this collection has been long.” However the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn has many poems in its various rhymes; we have collected, picked, and joined together: in all, over three hundred ancient- and modern-form poems. Although the count does not match the Lánshān’s abundance, the gist is largely visible. We have respectfully arranged by genre into six juǎn, so that neither brother’s works will be lost to later generations. Compiled and presented respectfully in the ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781).
Abstract
Lán Zhì’s lifedates are not securely fixed (CBDB id 34384 records the name without dates); his career signposts are the recommendation to Guǎngxī ànchá sī qiānshì in Hóngwǔ 10 (1377) and his subsequent return to Chóngān, where he eventually died. As younger brother to Lán Rén (KR4e0036) his lifedates run roughly parallel — birth in the late 1310s or 1320s, death in the late 1380s or 1390s. The mid-Míng disappearance of his collection — preserved only in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn rhyme-categories and recovered for the Sìkù — is unusually stark: even Jiāo Hóng’s Guóshǐ jīngjí zhì (the most thorough late-Míng catalog) records the elder brother’s collection but not this one. The Èr Lán founding-status for Mǐnzhōng verse is established jointly by KR4e0036 and KR4e0037 in the Sìkù’s implicit revisionist programme.
The historical interest of Lán Zhì’s biography is that he held substantive senior office in Guǎngxī under the Hóngwǔ government — a documented liánlì (incorruptible officer) — alongside his verse vocation; this conjunction is rare among the Èr Lán generation and provides one of the few documentary anchors for early-Hóngwǔ ànchá sī practice in the southwest. The corroboration from Liú Bǐng’s 1370s elegy (KR4e0035) and Zhāng Jǔ 張榘’s postface to the Shūhuái shī is the principal evidence for the Guǎngxī posting and Lán’s subsequent retirement.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976. Entry on Lán Zhì and Lán Rén (vol. 1, p. 791).
- 陳慶元 Mǐn-zhōng shī-pài yánjiū 閩中詩派研究. Fú-zhōu: Fú-jiàn rén-mín, 2007.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng bié-jí).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ textual judgement that Yǒnglè dàdiǎn’s reading 性之 (Xìngzhī) for Lán Zhì’s zì should be preferred over the universal later-source 明之 (Míngzhī) is an example of careful early-Míng witness preference; the dàdiǎn compilers worked at a date when the family’s records were still accessible.
Links
- Sìkù tíyào, Kyoto Zinbun digital edition
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).