Dōngtián yígǎo 東田遺稿
East-Field Surviving Manuscripts by 張羽 (撰), 張楨 (編)
About the work
The slim 2-juǎn surviving writings of Zhāng Yǔ 張羽 (b. 1467; death year unrecorded), zì Fèngjǔ 鳳舉, hào Dōngtián 東田, of Fèngxīn 奉新 (Jiāngxī) — Hóngzhì 9 / bǐngchén (1496) jìnshì; rose to Hénán zuǒ bùzhèngshǐ. A Censor-Bureau remonstrant: as yùshǐ (censor) submitted memorial striking Liú Jǐn 劉瑎 — zhí shēng zhèn cháoyě (upright voice rousing the court-and-realm). The collection has 1 juǎn of poetry and 1 of prose, compiled by his youngest son Zhāng Zhēn 張楨 with preface by Chǔ Xún 儲洵. NOTE on dating: the catalog meta lists Zhāng Yǔ as 1333–1385 — this is a homonym-conflation error with the famous Wúzhōng sìjié 張羽 (1333–1385). The KR4e0154 author is a different person: the Hóng-zhì-era Fèngxīn Zhāng Yǔ, CBDB id 34638, jìnshì of 1496. The catalog dates are not followed here; the notBefore / notAfter fields reflect his actual career period.
Tiyao
Dōngtián yígǎo in 2 juǎn — by Zhāng Yǔ of the Míng. Yǔ, zì Fèngjǔ, native of Fèngxīn (the source’s character is Fèngxìng 奉興 — but Fèngxīn 奉新 is the correct administrative name; the source character is a typographical slip preserved here). Hóngzhì bǐngchén (1496) jìnshì; office reached Hénán zuǒ bùzhèngshǐ. This collection has poetry and prose each one juǎn — compiled by his youngest son Zhēn; Chǔ Xún (his disciple) wrote the preface. Yǔ as yùshǐ had submitted memorial striking Liú Jǐn — zhí shēng zhèn cháoyě (upright voice rousing court-and-realm). Though prose is not much, his fāngzhèng zhī gài (square-and-correct outline) is lǐnrán xiàn yú hángjiān (sternly seen in the lines-between). Poetry too imitates shèngTáng (High-Táng), does not fall into the xiānqiǎo zhī xí (delicate-clever habits). Surely between Hóngzhì and Zhèngdé, the Míng-early elders’ distance was not yet far; liúfēng yúyùn (lingering-wind, leftover-tone) often-and-often present. And Yǔ’s dànjìng qiàozhí (plain-calm, straight-and-upright) also came from natural-disposition; though bódà fùjiàn (broad-and-rich) does not reach Lǐ Dōngyáng and Chéng Mǐnzhèng’s páiào jùlì (precipitous-grandeur, mighty-beauty); also does not reach Lǐ Mèngyáng and others — but does not make jiùdiào zhī fūkuò (the old-tone’s shallow-and-loose) , nor xīnshēng zhī túshì (the new-sound’s plastering-and-decorating); xiàoxīn ér chū, wùdá suǒ jiàn ér zhǐ (resembling-heart and issued, exhausting-the-reach what is seen, and stopping). Among Míng-era authors, can also count as making a single squadron. Compiled and presented in the tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Compilers as usual.
Abstract
The Dōngtián yígǎo is one of the Sìkù-preserved small literary records (2 juǎn) of a Hóng-zhì-Zhèng-dé-era Censor-Bureau remonstrant who, like Zōu Zhì (KR4e0141), was famous for one Liú Jǐn memorial. The collection’s chief documentary value is in showing the Sìkù preservation logic for small bodies of work attached to a single act of remonstrance. Zhāng’s literary placement in the Sìkù judgement is unusually precise: not the broad-richness of Lǐ Dōngyáng or Chéng Mǐnzhèng; not the precipitous beauty of Lǐ Mèngyáng’s school — but xiàoxīn ér chū (resembling-the-heart and issued), the simple zhèngshēng (correct-voice) survivors of the transition before the QiánQīzǐ revolution.
The preface by Chǔ Xún 儲洵 — one of Zhāng’s disciples — is a documentary cross-reference: Chǔ identifies the HóngzhìZhèngdé literary establishment as governed by Lǐ Dōngyáng (Xīyá) and Chéng Mǐnzhèng (Huángdūn KR4e0125), with the Táigé (cabinet-and-pavilion) line on the side. This puts Zhāng squarely in the Chálíng yīpài (Chángshā / Lǐ Dōngyáng one-school) loyalist cluster.
Critical note on dating: the catalog meta erroneously copies the dates 1333–1385 from the famous Wúzhōng sìjié 張羽 (Hóngwǔ-era; the subject of KR4e0038 Jìngjū jí and KR4e0042 Jìngān jí). The KR4e0154 author is a separate person, CBDB id 34638, native of Fèngxīn 奉新 (the source’s 奉興 is a typographical slip), jìnshì of 1496. The error is documentary and homonym-based; the present entry treats them as distinct persons.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976: notice of the Wú-zhōng Zhāng Yǔ (not the present author).
- Míng shǐ j. 188 — should be consulted for the Hóng-zhì 張羽 of Fèng-xīn.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28 (Míng bié-jí).
Other points of interest
The collection is one of the cleaner Sìkù-flagged catalog-meta homonym-error cases in this division: the Wúzhōng Sìjié 張羽 (Hóngwǔ-era, 1333–1385) and the Hóng-zhì-era Fèngxīn 張羽 (b. 1467) share a name, and the catalog meta records the Hóngwǔ dates as the dates of the Hóngzhì person — a 130-year displacement that is easily caught by the source-text tiyao but only after explicit cross-reference. The fraternal pair (the elder, hào Dōngtián; the younger, hào Běizhǔ) recorded in Chǔ Xún’s preface — Dōngtián and Běizhǔ together at retirement — is a documentary parallel to the Sū Shì / Sū Zhé retirement-pair motif.