Jìn Chūnqiū 晉春秋
Spring and Autumn Annals of Jin unattributed; reconstructed by 湯球
About the work
Jìn Chūnqiū 晉春秋 is a very sparse jíyìběn reconstruction (1 juǎn, approximately 45 lines, 2 fragments) of a lost Jin-dynasty annalistic history compiled under that title by 湯球 (Táng Qiú, 1804–1881). The source file preserves only two short passages, and the author is not identified in the reconstruction. This text is distinct from 孫盛’s Jìn Yángqiū 晉陽秋 (KR4k0337) and from 習鑿齒’s Hànjìn Chūnqiū 漢晉春秋 (KR4k0346).
The two surviving fragments are:
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An anecdote from the Dàxīng 大興 era (318–321 CE) of Eastern Jìn Emperor Yuán: a man named Qū Chún 區純 of Héng’yáng 衡陽 constructed a mechanical device called a “mouse market” (shǔ shì 鼠市) — a square enclosure with a door at each side, each door guarded by a wooden automaton (mùrén 木人) that would block with a mallet any mouse attempting to exit.
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A brief notice that a man of Wú named Zhāng Héng 張衡 (zì Sīzhēn 思真) “had a clear understanding of celestial phenomena and was skilled in mechanical ingenuity” (míng dá tiānguān, néng wéi jī qiǎo 明達天官，能為機巧) and constructed a rotating armillary sphere (húntiān yí 渾天儀) that made the earth appear stationary at the center while the heavens rotated around it, tracking the degrees of the sky.
The second fragment is almost certainly a variant textual tradition of the notice about the craftsman Gě Héng 葛衡 (zì Sīzhí 思直, fl. Wú period 222–280) that appears in KR4k0336 (KR4k0336); the name “張衡 / Sīzhēn” in this text against “葛衡 / Sīzhí” in KR4k0336 appears to be a scribal corruption.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source. This is a jíyìběn reconstruction.
Abstract
The lost work titled Jìn Chūnqiū 晉春秋 (not to be confused with Jìn Yángqiū 晉陽秋) is not easily matched to a single known author. Several Jin historians wrote annalistic histories (chūnqiū-style) of the dynasty; the most prominent with a title approximating “晉春秋” would be the Jìnjì 晉紀 by 干寶 (KR4k0334), but that is a separate compilation. The two surviving fragments are too sparse to enable confident attribution.
湯球 filed these two passages as “晉春秋” in his broader compilation of lost Wei-Jin historical texts. The extremely small size of the reconstruction (45 lines, 2 fragments) indicates that very few citations with this title were found in Tang-Song encyclopedic literature. The work may have perished before the Tang period without generating significant secondary citation. Its content — Eastern Jin technological curiosities and mechanical contrivances — is consistent with a late Eastern Jìn or Liu Sòng compilation.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.