QuánShǔ yìwén zhì 全蜀藝文志
Documentary Treatise of All Shǔ (Sì-chuān) by 周復俊
About the work
A 64-juǎn mid-Míng regional documentary anthology of Shǔ 蜀 (Sìchuān), compiled by Zhōu Fùjùn (周復俊, zì Bócháng 伯常, of Kūnshān 崑山, Jiājìng gēngxū (1550) jìnshì; the Jiāngnán tōngzhì’s “Zhōu Hòushū” entry is a transcription error) during his tenure as Sìchuān ànchásī fùshǐ (Vice Commissioner of Surveillance for Sìchuān). The work gathers all post-Hàn-Wèi verse and prose related to Shǔ — including some now-lost texts that are otherwise unattested:
- Sòng Luó Mì 羅泌’s Xìngshì pǔ 姓氏譜
- Yuán Fèi Zhù 費著’s Gǔqì pǔ 古器譜
- Táng Lǐ Shāngyǐn’s Chóngyángtíng míng 重陽亭銘 (missing from his surviving Yìshān wénjí)
- Plus much else preserved nowhere else.
Zhōu adds his own biànzhèng (critical notes) at the end of selected pieces — e.g. on the Hàn Chūpíng 5 (194) Zhōugōng lǐdiàn jì he compares the entries in Hóng Shì’s 洪适 Lìshì 隸釋 and Shǐ Zǐjiān 史子堅’s Lìgé 隸格, noting variants — distinguishing the work from less critical gazetteers.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the QuánShǔ yìwén zhì in 64 juǎn — the Míng Zhōu Fùjùn composed it. Fùjùn was a Kūnshān man, Jiājìng gēngxū (1550) jìnshì. (The Jiāngnán tōngzhì gives “Hòushū” — but this is an error.) This compilation is what he assembled during his tenure as Sìchuān ànchásī fùshǐ, broadly gathering Hàn-Wèi-and-later verse and prose with bearing on Shǔ — classified into one book.
The inclusion-and-exclusion (bāokuò wǎngluó) is exceedingly gāibèi (complete). What is recorded — e.g. Sòng Luó Mì’s Xìngshì pǔ, Yuán Fèi Zhù’s Gǔqì pǔ — these books are mostly no longer transmitted today. Further: Táng Lǐ Shāngyǐn’s Chóngyángtíng míng — also missing from the Yìshān wénjí. All such pieces are useful for kǎohé (verification).
After each section, Fùjùn occasionally appends biànzhèng — e.g. for the Hàn Chūpíng 5 (194) Zhōugōng lǐdiàn jì, comparing Hóng Shì’s Lìshì and Shǐ Zǐjiān’s Lìgé — recording detail and brevity, agreement and difference, and how they cross-reference. Unlike other gazetteers’ indiscriminate gathering.
As for Cáo Pī’s gào Yìzhōu wén (Cáo Pī, the founder of Wèi, addressing Yìzhōu / Sìchuān) and the Wèirén’s xíShǔ wén (Wèi man’s accusation of Shǔ) — these are wěicí xūshàn (false words, vain-praising) — turning right and wrong upside-down — by reason ought to be excluded. But this gazetteer aims at quánshōu (complete gathering), unlike zǒngjí in which qùqǔ (selection-and-rejection) is exercised. Recording good and bad together — this is not a flaw of Fùjùn’s. Only at the piece-end he does not append a biǎnbó zhī cí (denunciation language) to apply public justice — this is indeed a shū (omission).
Reverently submitted, sixth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date. Zhōu Fùjùn’s preface is dated Jiājìng rényín (1542), 4th month shuòdàn. The compilation was completed during his tenure as Sìchuān ànchásī fùshǐ — culminating in 1542.
Significance. (1) The work is the canonical Míng regional documentary anthology of Sìchuān, parallel to KR4h0103 Xīnān wénxiàn zhì (for Xīnān / Huīzhōu) and KR4h0045 Chéngdū wénlèi (the earlier SòngYuán predecessor). It preserves a great deal of regional documentary material — much of it found nowhere else. (2) The preface — quoted at length in the source file — is a major theoretical statement of prefectural-anthology theory, arguing that “a country cannot be without a shǐ (history) just as a prefecture cannot be without a zhì (gazetteer)” and that yìwén (literature) is one of seven essential gazetteer-divisions (帝后, 藩封, 監守, 名宦, 郡縣, 經略, 雜志, 藝文). (3) The work’s coverage of the Three-Kingdoms ShǔHàn legacy (Zhūgé Liàng 諸葛亮, Liú Bèi 劉備, etc.) — including the partisan documents from both sides — makes it a documentary source for the political-rhetorical history of the Three-Kingdoms division. (4) Several otherwise-lost texts are uniquely preserved here: Luó Mì’s Xìngshì pǔ, Fèi Zhù’s Gǔqì pǔ, Lǐ Shāngyǐn’s Chóngyángtíng míng. This makes the work a primary source — not merely a secondary anthology.
Translations and research
- Steven F. Sage, Ancient Sichuan and the Unification of China (Albany NY, 1992) — relevant for the pre-imperial / early-imperial Shǔ tradition.
- Hsiao-mei Hsia, Late Ming Pictorial Geography in Sichuan — regional study.
- 潘樹廣 Pān Shù-guǎng, Quán-Shǔ yì-wén zhì jiào-zhù — modern critical edition.
Other points of interest
The work’s title — QuánShǔ yìwén zhì — explicitly invokes the yìwén (Documentary-Treatise) genre established in the Hànshū yìwén zhì and continued in subsequent dynastic-history bibliographies. Zhōu’s claim is that a regional yìwén zhì is structurally parallel to a dynastic yìwén zhì — establishing the genre for MíngQīng prefectural-and-provincial documentary publishing. The work’s editorial method — exhaustive gathering with critical notes — was adopted as the model for later provincial yìwén zhì in Yúnnán, Shǎnxī, etc.
Links
- ctext
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §50.