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遜志齋集

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Text ID
KR4e0074
Date
1380–1402
Dynasty
明

Xùnzhìzhāi jí 遜志齋集

The Studio-of-Yielding-the-Will Collection by 方孝孺 (撰)

About the work

Xùnzhìzhāi jí 遜志齋集 in twenty-four juǎn is the literary collection of Fāng Xiàorú 方孝孺 (1357–1402), zì Xīzhí 希直 / Xīgǔ 希古, hào Xùnzhìzhāi 遜志齋 / Zhèngxué xiānshēng 正學先生, native of Nínghǎi 寧海 (Tāizhōu, Zhèjiāng). The foremost Jiànwén loyalist martyr — the man who refused Yǒnglè’s order to draft the jíwèi zhào 即位詔 (accession-edict) and was executed alongside his “ten degrees of kindred” (shí zú 十族 — an unprecedented shízú punishment specifically devised for Fāng, including his teachers and friends as a tenth “kindred” beyond the conventional jiǔ zú 九族 nine-degrees). The Sìkù editors’ SBCK base preserves an unusually detailed Fánlì 凡例 (editorial principles) listing five distinct recensions: (1) the Shǔběn 蜀本 (314 pieces, cut by Zhào Xuéyú 趙學諭 of Línhǎi in Sìchuān 60 years after Fāng’s death, i.e. c. 1462); (2) the Yìběn 邑本 (40 juǎn, by Xiè Wénsùgōng 謝文肅公 of Tàipíng and Huáng Wényìgōng 黃文毅公 of Huángyán, cut at Nínghǎi by Guō lìngyǐn 郭令尹 c. 1482); (3) the Jùnběn 郡本 (cut at Tāizhōu prefectural offices by jùnshǒu Gùgōng 顧公 of Gūsū c. 1522); plus the Lùnyuān 論淵 (a separate Lùn compilation by Qiū Wénzhuāng 丘濬, foregrounded by the Sìkù editors) and various supplementary sources. The SBCK is the comprehensive recension drawing on all of these.

Editorial principles (Fánlì)

The SBCK Fánlì — preserved here in transparency about textual recension — gives a model multi-witness textual-evaluation programme: (1) Shǔběn first, Yìběn second, Jùnběn third — three principal recensions cross-collated; (2) the Lùn (essays) section is supplemented from Qiū Jùn’s Lùnyuān; (3) suspicious pieces (the Sòng Xuéshì wéncuì xù, the Zhēnyì chǔshì Zhènggōng mùbiǎo, the Miǎnxué shī èrshísì shǒu etc.) are individually evaluated against multiple recensions; (4) pieces shown to be by other authors (the Zàozàozhāi jì 慥慥齋記, the Mùmián huā gē 木綿花歌) are removed; (5) pieces in the Qiánxī jí 潛溪集 [of Sòng Lián] but marked “dài Tàishǐ gōng zuò 代太史公作” (composed in proxy for Sòng Lián the tàishǐ) are taken as Fāng’s work and included; (6) pieces from the Sān xiānshēng wéncuì 三先生文稡 are added; (7) Sìchuān pieces (the Yóu Éméi 遊峨眉, the Gēfēngtái 歌風臺) from the Shǔběn and the Sìchuān zhì are supplemented. The Fánlì is one of the most carefully composed multi-recension critical editions of any Míng biéjí.

Abstract

Fāng Xiàorú’s lifedates 1357–1402 are confirmed by CBDB (id 28093: 1357–1402). The biography is foundational to Míng political-literary history: pupil of 宋濂 Sòng Lián; appointed Hànlín shìjiǎng 翰林侍講 under Jiànwén; one of the principal advisors of the Jiànwén court alongside Qí Tài 齊泰 and Huáng Zǐchéng 黃子澄; refused to draft Yǒnglè’s accession edict on the famous formula biàn sǐ jué bù cǎo 便死決不草 (“I will die — I will absolutely not draft it”); executed by jiémián 戒面 (clipping the cheek wide enough to reveal the mouth — a mutilation execution) plus shízú extermination of his ten kindreds (including teachers and friends as the tenth kindred), the only such punishment in Chinese history. The Zhèngxué xiānshēng 正學先生 hào — bestowed by Sòng Lián in private — became the canonical title under which Fāng was venerated in later Ruist-Confucian tradition as the foundational Confucian martyr of the Míng.

Yǒnglè’s prohibition of Fāng’s writings was even more severe than that of the other Jiànwén loyalists (KR4e0073 Liàn Zǐníng etc.); the Xùnzhìzhāi jí — like the Liàn Zhōngchéng jí — survives only through the painstaking efforts of mid-Míng compilers from the Chénghuà / Hóngzhì era onward. The five-recension transmission documented in the SBCK Fánlì is among the most carefully reconstructed in the entire Míng biéjí tradition.

The literary-historical significance: Fāng’s prose, especially the Lùn (essays) preserved through Qiū Jùn’s Lùnyuān, is the foundational document of the Jiàn-wén-era fùgǔ (return to antiquity) movement that anticipated the High-Míng Qiánhòu Qīzǐ. Sòng Lián’s pupillage and the Jīnhuá / Wénzhāng zhèngzōng 文章正宗 inheritance are clearly visible in the moral-rigorist register. Wilkinson, Chinese History, §28.4, takes Fāng as the central figure of the Jiàn-wén-era literary establishment; §43.7 takes his execution as the type case of Yǒnglè’s Jǐngnán purges.

The Xùnzhìzhāi (Studio-of-Yielding-the-Will) name comes from Shūjīng 書經 Yuèmìng xià 說命下: xùn zhì shí mǐn (yield the will, season-wisdom — Fù Yuè’s counsel to Wǔdīng). The studio-name was bestowed by Tàizǔ on Fāng (per the Míng shǐ) when Fāng presented his Yuèmìng commentary at court; the studio-name zhāi’s own etymology is therefore tied to Fāng’s foundational ritual-Classics scholarship.

Translations and research

  • L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976. Entry on Fāng Xiào-rú (vol. 1, pp. 426–433).
  • Hok-lam Chan. “The Chien-wen, Yung-lo, Hung-hsi, and Hsüan-te reigns, 1399–1435.” In Cambridge History of China, vol. 7. Cambridge UP, 1988.
  • Kandice Hauf. The Chien-wen Confucians in the Ming. Princeton: PUP, 2000. The standard Western monograph on the Jiàn-wén loyalist group; Fāng is the central figure.
  • 王崇武 Fāng Xiào-rú nián-pǔ 方孝孺年譜. Several modern Chinese annotated editions of the Xùn-zhì-zhāi jí are now standard.
  • Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng bié-jí); §43.7 (Jiàn-wén / Jǐng-nán).

Other points of interest

The shízú (ten kindreds) extermination of Fāng’s family — the unprecedented inclusion of teachers and friends as a tenth kindred beyond the conventional jiǔzú nine-degree extermination — is the most severe penal extension in Chinese imperial history, devised specifically for Fāng Xiàorú by Yǒnglè on the explicit grounds that conventional jiǔzú extermination was inadequate for the magnitude of Fāng’s defiance. The Xùnzhìzhāi jí’s mid-Míng recovery through multiple regional editorial circles is itself a historical-cultural witness to the literary-political afterlife of the shízú extermination.

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