Wèi Chūnqiū 魏春秋
Spring and Autumn Annals of Wei by 孫盛 (撰); reconstructed by 湯球
About the work
Wèi Chūnqiū 魏春秋 (more fully Wèishì Chūnqiū 魏氏春秋) is a fragmentary history of the Cáo-Wèi 曹魏 kingdom (220–265 CE) composed by 孫盛 (Sūn Shèng, 302–373 CE) of the Eastern Jìn dynasty. It survives only in reconstructed fragments (jíyìběn 辑佚本) compiled by the Qīng scholar 湯球 (Táng Qiú, 1804–1881) and published in the Guǎngyǎ Shūjú Cóngshū 廣雅書局叢書. The Kanripo text is this reconstruction (1 juǎn, approximately 112 lines). The fragments are drawn primarily from Péi Sōngzhī’s 裴松之 annotations to the Sānguó Zhì 三國志, Liú Xiàobiāo’s 劉孝標 annotations to the Shìshuō Xīnyǔ 世說新語, and encyclopedias such as Tàipíng Yùlǎn 太平御覽.
The surviving fragments cover episodes from the Wèi dynasty: Emperor Wén’s 文帝 (Cáo Pī 曹丕) construction of scenic gardens in the Huánglíng 黃初 era (220–226), anecdotes about notable officials and scholars of the Wèi period (including Ruǎn Jí 阮籍, Wáng Yù 王遇, Cuī Lín 崔林, and Liú Zhèng 劉政), and episodes from the military-political history of the Three Kingdoms.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source. This is a jíyìběn reconstruction.
Abstract
孫盛 (Sūn Shèng, 302–373; courtesy name Guó’ān 國安) was a prominent Eastern Jìn historian and official, also known for his slightly larger Jìn Yángqiū 晉陽秋 (preserved at KR4k0337). The Wèi Chūnqiū was his history of the Cáo-Wèi period (220–265), composed in an annalistic style analogous to the Chūnqiū 春秋 classics. The Wèi Chūnqiū was one of the supplementary histories used by Péi Sōngzhī when annotating Chén Shòu’s Sānguó Zhì (completed 285 CE, annotated 429 CE); Péi’s annotations are thus the principal survival vehicle for Sūn Shèng’s text.
After the Tang dynasty commissioned a new Jìnshū 晉書 (completed 648 CE), most earlier Wei and Jin histories were allowed to fall into disuse. The reconstruction by 湯球 湯球 (1804–1881) — part of his larger project of reconstructing the “Eighteen Jin Histories” (shíbā jiā jiù Jìnshū 十八家舊晉書) and related materials — drew fragments from hundreds of secondary sources to reconstitute lost texts. The Wèi Chūnqiū reconstruction is modest in size (112 lines), reflecting the limited number of surviving citations.
Translations and research
- Goodman, Howard L. 2015. “Jin shu.” In Chennault et al., eds., Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. IEAS, University of California, Berkeley, pp. 136–145. (Principal English-language guide to the Jin-period histories as a group.)
- Theobald, Ulrich. “Weishi chunqiu 魏氏春秋.” chinaknowledge.de.
- Cutter, Robert Joe, and William Gordon Crowell. 1999. Empresses and Consorts: Selections from Chen Shou’s “Records of the Three States” with Pei Songzhi’s Commentary. University of Hawai’i Press. (Uses Pei’s annotations extensively, including Sūn Shèng.)