Sān Liú jiā jí 三劉家集
Joint Family Collection of the Three Liú by 劉渙 (etc.), compiled by 劉元高
About the work
A one-juǎn joint family anthology gathering the surviving literary remains of the Three Liú of Yúnzhōu — Liú Huàn 劉渙 (1000–1080, zì Níngzhī, “Xījiàn xiānshēng”), Liú Shù 劉恕 (1032–1078, zì Dàoyuán, Sīmǎ Guāng’s principal Tōngjiàn collaborator), and Liú Xīzhòng 劉羲仲 (zì Zhuàngyú, Guóshǐ jiǎntǎo, son of Liú Shù) — compiled in the Xiánchún period (1265–1274) by their late-Southern-Sòng descendant, the Yùshǐ Liú Yuángāo 劉元高. By the time of compilation, the original collections were almost entirely lost. What survives in the present book is scant: of Liú Huàn, only 4 poems and 2 prose pieces; of Liú Shù, only the Tōngjiàn wàijì preface and his son’s record of Tōngjiàn wènyí; of Liú Xīzhòng, only a single family letter. The bulk of the volume is therefore made up of contemporaries’ exchanges with the three Liú and other men’s prose touching on them.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Sān Liú jiā jí in one juǎn — the surviving remains of Sòng’s Liú Huàn, Liú Shù, and Liú Xīzhòng. Huàn, zì Níngzhī, of Yúnzhōu, was jìnshì of Tiānshèng 8 (1030); served as Yǐngshàng magistrate; retired as Tàizǐ zhōngyǔn. His eldest son Liú Shù, zì Dàoyuán, was jìnshì in a high rank; appointed Jùlù zhǔbù; transferred Zhī Héchuān, Wēngyuán magistrate. When Sīmǎ Guāng received the imperial commission to compile the Zīzhì tōngjiàn, he memorialised to have Shù as co-editor; transferred Zhe-zuò láng; falling out with Wáng Ānshí, he begged leave to retire and care for his mother; later transferred Mìshū chéng; finally completed the appended Wàijì at home. His eldest son Liú Xīzhòng, zì Zhuàngyú, was given office at the Jiāoshè zhāi láng through Shù’s compilation merit; rose to Rǔzhōu yícáo; recommended and summoned, became Xuānjiào láng and Guóshǐ jiǎntǎo. All three generations were upright and historically gifted; Shù was the most outstanding — Sīmǎ Guāng’s praise of his broad learning and strong memory and the documentary basis of all matters small and great is fair. The collection was compiled in Xiánchún by their descendant, the Yùshǐ Liú Yuángāo: by the late Southern Sòng there was already no longer a transmitted text, so he picked up fragments. Huàn has only 4 poems and 2 prose pieces; Shù has only the Tōngjiàn wàijì preface and his son’s record of Tōngjiàn wènyí; Xīzhòng has only one family letter; the rest are contemporaries’ chànghé and other men’s writings touching on the Liú father-and-son.
In the book Huàn is styled Xījiàn xiānshēng (“Master of West Stream”), Shù Mìchéng (“Mìshūchéng”), Xīzhòng Jiǎntǎo (“Guóshǐ jiǎntǎo”) — appropriate from descendants. But the titles of contemporaries’ poems and prose are uniformly redacted: their references to the three Liú by name or zì are all changed to “Xījiàn xiānshēng,” “Mìchéng,” “Jiǎntǎo” — quite contrary to fact: this is the crudeness of the compilation.
In the Míng, Wàn Ān 萬安, greedy and shameless and the scorn of his age, alone had a colophon at the juǎn-end — Huàn father-and-son-and-grandson hardly need such a man to credit them. The present edition strikes it out, that the three Liú be not stained by him. Reverently submitted, tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date: by Liú Yuángāo’s Xiánchún compilation note (the Sìkù editors do not specify the year). The book is transmissionally important despite its small size, because the most significant of the three figures — Liú Shù — is otherwise documented mainly through Sīmǎ Guāng’s letters and the Tōngjiàn prefatory apparatus, and the Sān Liú jiā jí is the principal family-side documentary witness to him.
The three Liú had distinct historical roles:
- Liú Huàn: late-Bāo-Yuán / early-Qìng-lì retired-official figure, recluse of Lúshān, Tiānshèng 8 (1030) jìnshì, anchored the lineage’s reputation for gāngzhí (uprightness).
- Liú Shù: foundational historian of the Zīzhì tōngjiàn — particularly responsible for the pre-Qín, Han, and pre-Suí sections; his Tōngjiàn wàijì 通鑑外紀 KR2g0001 is a separately catalogued work; his disagreements with Wáng Ānshí over the New Policies caused his withdrawal from court in Xīníng 4 (1071); Sīmǎ Guāng famously eulogised him as the Tōngjiàn’s most learned collaborator.
- Liú Xīzhòng: Guóshǐ jiǎntǎo in the Yuányòu period; lesser figure but in the historiographic line.
Despite the SKQS editors’ editorial reservations (the descendants’ systematic redaction of friend-references), the book retains documentary value: the contemporaries’ poems — by figures like Lǚ Xīzhé 呂希哲, Wáng Ānguó 王安國, Sū Shì — are not preserved elsewhere in this configuration.
Translations and research
- E.G. Pulleyblank, “Chinese Historical Criticism: Liu Chih-chi and Ssu-ma Kuang,” in Historians of China and Japan, ed. Beasley and Pulleyblank (1961) — Liú Shù as Sī-mǎ Guāng’s collaborator.
- Wáng Tiān-yǒu 王天有 et al., Zī-zhì tōng-jiàn yánjiū 資治通鑑研究 — extended treatment of Liú Shù’s role.
- Charles Hartman, The Making of Song Dynasty History (Cambridge UP, 2021) — Liú Shù and the historiographic context.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §31.4.
- ctext