Jíyùshānfáng gǎo 集玉山房稿
Drafts from the Jíyù Mountain Studio by 葛昕 (撰)
About the work
The Jíyùshānfáng gǎo 集玉山房稿 in ten juǎn is the collected prose and verse of the Wàn-lì-era official Gé Xīn 葛昕 (zì Yòumíng 幼明, hào Lóngchí 龍池) of Dépíng 德平 in Shāndōng, who rose by yǐn-privilege from Dūdūfǔ dūshì to Gōngbù Túntiánsī lángzhōng and finally Shàngbǎosī qīng. The collection was edited after his death by his son 葛如龍 and others on a strict genre principle: one juǎn of memorials, one of zànyǔ (encomia), one of poetry, one of prefaces, one of tomb-records and biographies, one of records / inscriptions / colophons, one of qǐ (opening-petitions), two of letters, one of sacrificial liturgies. The dated material — most prominently a Wànlì 12 (= 1584) memorial on the Dàyùshān 大峪山 imperial-mausoleum project — fixes the lower end of the composition window; the upper end is not directly recoverable from the texts but falls within the late Wànlì.
Tiyao
Your servants etc. respectfully memorialise. The Jíyùshānfáng gǎo in ten juǎn was composed by Gé Xīn 葛昕 of the Míng dynasty. Xīn, zì Yòumíng 幼明, hào Lóngchí 龍池, a man of Dépíng 德平, served as Shàngbǎosī qīng. Xīn entered office by hereditary-privilege (yǐn), at first appointed Dūdūfǔ dūshì; Xuē Zhèng 薛鋹, Marquis of Yángwǔ 陽武, was on the point of being denied the patent of succession on account of poverty; Xīn argued the case against the consensus, and Zhèng was duly granted the succession. He was thereupon promoted to Gōngbù Túntiánsī lángzhōng. He proposed to cut by over a million catties the charcoal quota of the Xīxīnsī, and to cashier 561 eunuchs from the factory-bureaux: the danger to himself was beyond reckoning, yet by three successive memorials in a row he saw his proposal through. He also opposed the lavish posthumous honours claimed by the imperial-affines for Zhèng Fú 鄭福; though he did not prevail, all under heaven held him in high regard. His backbone is upright and unbending. His prose too is open, brisk and swift, with no trace of cringing or pettiness — fitting to his person. The single piece sent in token to Kǒng Jiànfēng 孔劍峯 in the form of a preface gives an impression of indulgence in heterodox practice and does not look like Xīn’s normal work; but Xīn had been unable to obtain a portrait of his deceased parents, and Kǒng’s arts had drawn them in posthumous likeness as if alive — so that, overcome with relief, he praised him too much, his words flowing from a son’s filial heart without his recognising the lapse, and this may be excused on extenuating grounds.
This collection was compiled by his son 葛如龍 (Gé Rúlóng) and others, comprising: one juǎn of memorials, one juǎn of zànyǔ (encomia), one juǎn of poetry, one juǎn of prefaces, one juǎn of biographies and tomb-records, one juǎn of records, inscriptions and colophons, one juǎn of qǐ (opening-petitions), two juǎn of letters, one juǎn of sacrificial liturgies. We now follow the existing arrangement and record it accordingly. Respectfully collated in the fifth month of Qiánlóng 44 (= 1779).
Chief compilation officers: your servants Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief collation officer: your servant Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Gé Xīn was not a jìnshì-trained literatus but a hereditary functionary who became, in middle career, a model conscientious bureaucrat of the Wànlì régime. The collection’s central documentary value lies in the first juǎn of memorials, which preserve in his own voice three of the most notable confrontations of his career: the case of the Yángwǔ marquisate, the slashing of the Xīxīnsī firewood and eunuch establishment, and the failed attempt to block lavish posthumous honours for the Zhèng imperial in-laws. The Dàyùshān shòugōng memorial (Wànlì 12 / 1584) — concerning the joint deliberation of the Boards of Rites and Works on the site selection for the future Dìnglíng 定陵, the Shénzōng emperor’s mausoleum — is a primary source for the early stages of the Dìnglíng construction and is the principal reason the collection retains historiographical importance. Gé conducted that deliberation under the Jiājìng 15 (= 1536) precedent of the Shìzōng emperor’s pre-mortem mausoleum-selection.
The Sìkù compilers describe Gé’s writing-character as ‘open, brisk and swift, with no trace of cringing or pettiness’ (shūshuǎng jùnkuài, wú yāně wòchuò zhī qì 踈爽駿快無媕妸齷齪之氣) — that is, the unornamented memorial style of a Wànlì ‘good-official’ rather than the Wénbì mannered elegance characteristic of jin-shi-trained writers. The exception they flag — the laudatory preface for the necromancer Kǒng Jiànfēng 孔劍峯, who supplied a posthumous likeness of Gé’s parents — is forgiven on filial-piety grounds. The collection’s tenth juǎn of sacrificial liturgies and the multiple memorial- and tomb-text juǎn preserve a great deal of local-family material from Dépíng and adjacent Shāndōng counties.
No CBDB record matches Gé Xīn with confirmed dates; the local Dépíngxiàn zhì should be consulted for confirmation. His direct dated activity (1584+) and the survival of pieces compiled by his son after his death suggest he flourished c. 1570–1610.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. In Chinese, Gé Xīn figures intermittently in modern works on the Dìng-líng / Shòu-gōng construction (e.g., Mèng Fán-rén 孟凡人, Míng dài gōng tíng yǔ líng qǐn 明代宮廷與陵寢, 2008), and in Shān-dōng local-history studies (notably the post-1990 reprints of the Dé-píng-xiàn zhì). A modern punctuated edition is available in the Sìkù quánshū cún-mù cóngshū bǔ-biān 四庫全書存目叢書補編 reprint series.
Other points of interest
The collection’s title — ‘Drafts from the Jíyùshānfáng’ — names a studio that Gé maintained, presumably at Dépíng; jíyù 集玉 (‘gathered jade’) was a stock literati metaphor for treasured collected things, here applied retrospectively by the editor to the collected writings themselves. The collection thus belongs to the broader Wànlì sub-genre of biéjí curated by a son after the father’s death.