Hàn Jìn Chūnqiū 漢晉春秋
Annals of Han and Jin by 習鑿齒
About the work
Hàn Jìn Chūnqiū 漢晉春秋 is a jíyìběn reconstruction in 3 juǎn of the lost historical work by the Eastern Jin historian 習鑿齒 (習鑿齒, fl. mid-4th c. CE). The work was a political-chronological history that argued for Jin’s legitimacy as the successor to Hàn, deliberately bypassing the Cáo Wèi 曹魏 interregnum. The reconstruction includes two long political discourses on legitimacy theory and approximately 200 fragmentary passages of historical narrative, biography, and geography preserved in early Táng and Sòng sources.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source. This is a jíyìběn reconstruction.
Abstract
Xí Zuòchǐ 習鑿齒 (styled Yànwēi 彥威) was a native of Xiāngyáng 襄陽 who served as an official under Huán Wēn 桓溫 during the Eastern Jin. His Hàn Jìn Chūnqiū was conceived as a corrective to the prevailing historiographical position that saw Jin as the legitimate successor of Cáo Wèi. Xí argued instead that Jin received the mandate directly from Hàn — a theory known as “Jin succeeds Hàn” (晉承漢). The opening discourse, “Jìn yí yuè Wèi jì Hàn, bù yìng yǐ Wèi hòu wéi sān kè lùn” 晉宜越魏繼漢不應以魏後為三恪論 (Jin Should Bypass Wei, Succeed Han, and Not Treat Wei’s Descendants as the Three Respects), is the fullest surviving statement of this position. A second discourse, “Bié Zhōu Lǔ tōng Zhūgé lùn” 別周魯通諸葛論, compares Zhūgé Liàng 諸葛亮 favorably with the Duke of Zhōu.
The Suí Shū 隋書 bibliography records the Hàn Jìn Chūnqiū in 47 juǎn; the Jiù Táng Shū 舊唐書 records 54 juǎn. The full work was lost after the Táng. The reconstruction, attributed to the Qīng scholar 湯球 and published in the Guǎngyǎ Shūjú Cóngshū 廣雅書局叢書, assembles fragments mainly from Péi Sōngzhī’s 裴松之 commentary to the Sānguó Zhì 三國志, the Shìshuō Xīnyǔ 世說新語 commentary, the Tàipíng Yùlǎn 太平御覽, and the Běitáng Shūchāo 北堂書鈔. The fragments cover events from the late Eastern Hàn through the Eastern Jin, with notable emphasis on the Three Kingdoms period and the political-military history of the Western Jin.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
Xí Zuòchǐ’s legitimacy theory (晉承漢) was politically influential despite being historically rejected — it was taken up by the Northern Sòng for its own legitimacy debates, though the Sòng ultimately sided with the “legitimate succession through Wei” (魏正統) position.