Wúdū wéncuì 吳都文粹
Distilled Essence of Wú-dū Literature by 鄭虎臣
About the work
A 9-juǎn regional anthology of literature on Sūzhōu (Wújùn / Wúdū) and its sub-prefectures — Chángzhōu, Chángshú, Wújiāng, Kūnshān — compiled in the late Southern Sòng by Zhèng Hǔchén 鄭虎臣 (zì Jǐngzhào, d. 1275). Zhèng is the historical figure who, as supervising guard, killed the disgraced chief minister Jiǎ Sìdào at Mùmiánān in Déyòu 1 (1275). His Wúdū wéncuì preserves Sūzhōu-related prose by major TángSòng writers — Dù Mù, Zhāng Jì, Wéi Yìngwù, Bái Jūyì, Sū Shùnqīn, Pí Rìxiū, Lù Guīméng, Méi Fú, Wáng Yǔchēng, Zhū Chángwén, Zhāng Bóyù, Hóng Mài, Wú Qián, Chén Qíqìng, Liáng Sù, Zhāng Jiǔchéng, Zhū Xī, Lù Jī, Fàn Chéngdà, Lóng Yízhēng, Wāng Yīngchén, Lǐ Shòupéng, Zhào Sù, Jiá Dàn — covering the political, agricultural, hydraulic, and cultural history of Sūzhōu from Six-Dynasties through Southern Sòng.
The book is structurally a regional anthology paired with a regional gazetteer: it complements Fàn Chéngdà 范成大’s Wújùn zhì 吳郡志 KR3h0019 or thereabouts in its documentary scope and the SKQS tíyào explicitly characterises it as a “biǎolǐ” (twin parts) to the Wújùn zhì.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Wúdū wéncuì in 9 juǎn — edited by Sòng’s Zhèng Hǔchén. By the Sūzhōu fǔzhì: Hǔchén, zì Jǐngzhào, once was Kuàijī wèi. In the early Déyòu (1275), he volunteered to be jiānyā and killed Jiǎ Sìdào at Mùmiánān — the same man.
The book gathers the literary remains of Wújùn very fully. Among them: Lǐ Shòupéng’s Zhā bǔ xīnjūn (memorial on supplementing the new military force), Wāng Yīngchén’s Shēnzòu Xǔpǔ shuǐjūn (memorial on the Xǔpǔ navy), Zhào Sù’s Sānshíliù pǔ lìhài (advantages and disadvantages of the 36 water-courses), Jiá Dàn’s Zhìhé táng liùdé liùshī (six gains and six losses of the Zhìhé embankment) — all bearing on military and agricultural matters of state. Other geographical evolution-records are also numerous, illustrated by:
Gōng Yízhèng’s Qǐxián táng jì says: “Chángzhōu was made a county in Wànsuì tōngtiān of the Tang”; whereas the Wú dì jì records it as “established in Zhēnguān 7.” The Táng dìlǐzhì agrees with Gōng’s jì; can be used to correct the Wú dì jì. The Wú dì jì further says “Chángshú xiàn was changed in Zhēnguān 9 of the Tang”; whereas Fàn Chéngdà’s Chángshú xiàn tímíng jì says: “The county was formerly Pílíng; in the Liáng it was changed.” This too can be cross-collated against the Wú dì jì for discrepancies.
So this book — called Wéncuì — is in fact biǎolǐ (twin parts) with the regional gazetteer. Eastern-and-southern wénxiàn are largely attested only here; in the company of Fàn Chéngdà’s Wújùn zhì it functions as the second horse of the chariot. Reverently submitted, third month of Qiánlóng 42 (1777). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date: Zhèng Hǔchén’s known floruit — jiānyā over Jiǎ Sìdào in Déyòu 1 (1275) — gives an upper bound; his Kuàijī wèi tenure before that gives a lower bound. The compilation is likely ca. 1260–1275, in the final years of the Southern Sòng. The book is one of the very last great Southern-Sòng regional anthologies before the Mongol conquest.
Significance:
(1) Principal documentary witness to Sūzhōu literary culture. The Wúdū wéncuì preserves Sūzhōu-related prose from the Han through the late Sòng, including texts on administrative history, water-conservancy, military affairs, agricultural infrastructure, and religious-cultural sites. The book is foundational for Sūzhōu local history.
(2) A documentary supplement to the Wújùn zhì. The book is read by the SKQS editors as a deliberately complementary anthology to Fàn Chéngdà’s Wújùn zhì (1192) — preserving the literary texts that supply the documentary basis for the gazetteer’s institutional history. The two books together constitute the canonical Southern-Sòng documentation of Sūzhōu.
(3) A document of moral-political compilation in the late Sòng. Zhèng Hǔchén — the man who killed Jiǎ Sìdào — selected texts on military, hydraulic, and administrative effectiveness, suggesting the compilation served as documentation of how local governance should be done in the late Sòng, a critique of Jiǎ Sìdào’s failed national policies. The literary anthology becomes a moral-political statement.
The book is also a key documentary source for textual collation of pre-Sòng material: the SKQS editors note Gōng Yízhèng’s Qǐxián táng jì and Fàn Chéngdà’s Chángshú xiàn tímíng jì as examples of the book’s role in collating against the earlier Wú dì jì.
Translations and research
- James M. Hargett, “Local Gazetteers and Local Topography in Sòng Times,” T’oung Pao 82 (1996): 405–442.
- Joseph Dennis, Writing, Publishing, and Reading Local Gazetteers in Imperial China, 1100–1700 (Harvard Asia Center, 2015).
- Wáng Dé-yì 王德毅, Sòng-dài fāng-zhì kǎo (Taipei, 1968).
- Michael Marmé, Suzhou: Where the Goods of All the Provinces Converge (Stanford, 2005) — Sūzhōu as cultural-economic centre.
Other points of interest
The author’s personal history — Zhèng Hǔchén as executor of Jiǎ Sìdào — gives this anthology a unique political resonance among late-Southern-Sòng compilations. The book is one of the last great regional anthologies of the Sòng before the 1276 Mongol seizure of Línān, and its preservation of Southern-Sòng water-conservancy and military memorials makes it an unintended document of Sòng administrative effectiveness on the eve of conquest.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §53.5.
- ctext