Hóng Běijiāng shīwénjí 洪北江詩文集
The Combined Poetry and Prose Collection of Hóng (Liàng-jí, of) Běi-jiāng by 洪亮吉 (撰) and 呂培 (等撰年譜)
About the work
The combined collected works (shīwénjí 詩文集) of 洪亮吉 Hóng Liàngjí (1746–1809; original name 禮吉 Lǐjí, zì Zhìcún 稚存, hào Běijiāng 北江, also Gēngshēng 更生, native of Yánghú 陽湖, Chángzhōu 常州, Jiāngsū). The leading Chángzhōu kǎozhèng-historical-poet of the late Qiánlóng / early Jiāqìng decades, banished to Yīlí 伊犁 in 1799 for memorializing against Hé-shēn-era corruption (one of the most famous remonstrance incidents of the dynasty). The SBCK 66-juan recension consists of multiple sub-collections published separately during Hóng’s life and re-collected after his death: the Juǎnshīgé wénjiǎ jí 卷施閣文甲集 (10 juan prose) and yǐ jí 乙集 (8 juan prose) and shī jí 詩集 (20 juan poetry); the Gēngshēngzhāi wénjiǎ jí 更生齋文甲集 / yǐ jí (post-banishment writings); the Fùjí Xièxuān shī 附鮚軒詩 (8 juan, early travel-poetry cycles); the Nǐ LiǎngJìn NánBěishǐ yuèfǔ 擬兩晉南北史樂府 (2 juan, his historical yuèfǔ on the Two Jin and Northern-Southern dynasties); plus the Niánpǔ 年譜 (chronological biography) compiled by his disciple 呂培 Lǚ Péi (1776–1824) and others. The SBCK volume is the standard pre-modern recension; in juan-count it is the largest biéjí in the KR4f series outside the SòngYuán masters.
Prefaces
The front matter of the SBCK volume contains: (a) the Nǐ LiǎngJìn NánBěishǐ yuèfǔ in two juan with its prefaces — a preface signed Sōngyá xuédì Guǎn Gànzhēn 松崖學弟管幹珍 dated Qiánlóng suìcì xīnmǎo xiàyuè 乾隆歲次辛卯夏月 (summer, 1771, Qiánlóng 36), and a self-preface by Zhìcún Hóng Lǐjí 稚存洪禮吉 (note: Hóng’s original name was 禮吉 Lǐjí, used here, before he changed it to 亮吉 Liàngjí in the late 1780s) dated Qiánlóng sānshíwǔ nián chángzhì hòu èr rì 乾隆三十五年長至後二日 (two days after the winter solstice, 1770); (b) a bá (colophon) by Tú Shēn 屠紳 (hào Hùyán 笏巖) on the yuèfǔ; and (c) the dual mùlù (table of contents) of the yuèfǔ juan 上 and 下, listing as collaborators not only Hóng himself but the literary circle that workshopped the verses — Tú Shēn 屠紳 (Hùyán), Guǎn Gànzhēn 管幹珍 (Sōngyá), Qián Wéiqiáo 錢維喬 (Zhúchū), Zhào Huáiyù 趙懷玉 (Wèixīn), and the famous early-Qiánlóng poet 黃景仁 Huáng Jǐngrén (1749–1783, zì Zhòngzé 仲則). Hóng’s self-preface explains the yuèfǔ’s origin: as a child he studied history under Master Huáng Shíjiān 黃石緘, whose detailed discourses on the Sīmǎ (Jin) and Northern-Southern dynasties shaped his historical imagination; later, after failing the autumn examination in 1770, he composed 120 nǐgǔ yuèfǔ (imitation-archaic yuèfǔ) on these eras, partly to record his childhood instruction. Guǎn Gànzhēn’s preface develops a comparative theory of qíng (emotion) and yuèfǔ, contrasting Hóng’s work with that of Lǐ Dōngyáng 李東陽 (Xīyá 西涯) and Yóu Tóng 尤侗 (Xītáng 西堂).
Abstract
Hóng Liàngjí is one of the most significant single intellectual figures of late Qiánlóng to early Jiāqìng. Polymath: epigrapher, historical geographer, statistical demographer, poet, gǔwén prose stylist. Jìnshì of 1790 ranking second in the èrjiǎ (a bǎngyǎn), Hànlín biānxiū, served as provincial education commissioner of Guìzhōu. In 1799, three months after the Qiánlóng emperor’s death, he submitted to the newly-acceding 嘉慶 Jiāqìng emperor (through the inspector-general Chéng Wéijì 成親王 Yǒngxīng 永瑆) a sealed memorial criticizing the previous decade of Hé-shēn-era corruption and laxity in court administration. The memorial — judged technically presumptuous on procedural grounds — earned him a death sentence, immediately commuted to banishment to Yīlí (Ili, Xīnjiāng). After roughly 100 days in Yīlí, the emperor remitted him on grounds of an inauspicious drought, and Hóng was permitted to return to Jiāngsū as a private citizen. He spent the final decade of his life (1800–1809) writing in retirement: the Gēngshēngzhāi 更生齋 (“Studio of Renewed Life”) collections post-date the banishment.
The Juǎnshīgé wénjí contains Hóng’s principal historical-geographical and epigraphic writings, including the Liùcháo bēimíng 六朝碑銘 commentaries, the Dōngjìn jiāngyù zhì 東晉疆域志 (his famous reconstruction of Eastern Jin territorial geography), and the Yīlí rìjì 伊犁日記 (diary of his banishment journey). The prose also includes the much-cited Yì yán 意言 essay-series — fragmentary philosophical-political musings, in which Hóng formulated what economic historians call the Mǎěrsàsī cháodài 馬爾薩斯潮代 (“Malthusian moment”) of Chinese demographic thought: an explicit observation, two decades before Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population, that the doubling of population every generation must outrun the slow expansion of arable land, with destabilizing consequences. The shījí includes his yuèfǔ, his historical-occasional verse, and his banishment-poetry. His prose was admired by the Tóngchéng circle (姚鼐 KR4f0052) but Hóng himself stood outside the Tóngchéng affiliation, identifying instead with the Yánghú / Chángzhōu bǐngzì circle that produced the Chángzhōu cí pài school of cí poetry.
Composition window: c. 1770 (the yuèfǔ prefaces) through 1809 (Hóng’s death at Chángzhōu). The SBCK 66-juan recension reproduces the imprints made successively over Hóng’s life and consolidated posthumously by Lǚ Péi and others; the Niánpǔ dates from the early Dàoguāng years (c. 1820s).
Translations and research
Susan Mann Jones, “Hung Liang-chi (1746–1809): The Perception and Articulation of Political Problems in Late Eighteenth Century China” (PhD diss., Stanford, 1972) — foundational English-language study, covers the 1799 memorial and the demographic essays.
Susan Mann, “Scholasticism and Politics in Late-Eighteenth-Century China,” in Eighteenth-Century China: Centennial Essays, ed. Frederic Wakeman (Berkeley, 1972).
Ho Ping-ti, Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953 (Harvard, 1959) — analyzes Hóng’s demographic essays in Yì yán.
Silas H. L. Wu, “Statesman, Confucian and Censor: Hong Liang-ji (1746–1809) and His Sealed Memorial of 1799,” Bulletin of Sung-Yuan Studies (1985).
Wáng Zhōng-shū 王仲犖, Yán-tiě lùn jiǎo-zhù introductory matter — refers to Hóng’s geographical reconstructions.
Liú Hè 劉鶴, Hóng Liàng-jí píng zhuàn 洪亮吉評傳 (Nanjing UP, 2006).
Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §54 (Qīng historical geography), §28.8 (Qīng prose), §66.4 (Qīng kǎo-zhèng); refers to Hóng repeatedly.
ECCP 373–375 (Tu Lien-che).
Other points of interest
Hóng’s 1799 memorial is one of the most celebrated documents of Qīng remonstrance literature; its full text, preserved in the Gēngshēngzhāi wénjí, is the documentary basis for understanding the early Jiāqìng emperor’s break with the Hé-shēn-era court culture. The remission of Hóng’s banishment after only 100 days — explicitly ascribed by imperial edict to drought as Heaven’s response to his unjust treatment — set a precedent of Confucian-constitutional dialogue that Hóng’s subsequent essays repeatedly invoked.
The 1770 yuèfǔ preserve Hóng’s original given name 禮吉 Lǐjí; only after his jìnshì of 1790 does the form 亮吉 Liàngjí become standard. Both names appear in the SBCK front matter (the 1771 preface uses Lǐjí; the catalog and standard later references use Liàngjí).
Links
- Wikidata Q11149236 (Hong Liangji)
- ECCP 373–375
- Wilkinson 2018, §28.8, §54, §66.4
- CBDB id 30731 (1746–1809)