Chéng Gōngshuō 程公說
Style name Bógāng 伯剛; sobriquet Kèzhāi 克齋. Native of Dānléng 丹棱 (modern Sìchuān); resided at Xuānhuà 宣化. Lifedates 1171–1207, given by Liú Guāngzǔ 劉光祖’s tomb-inscription and confirmed by CBDB id 13806. Younger brother Chéng Gōngxǔ 程公許 (who in 1243 cut his late brother’s Chūnqiū fēn jì at Yíchūn).
Passed jìnshì at age 25 (Qìngyuán 5, 1199); held the post of Qióngzhōu jiàoshòu 邛州教授. The Wú Xī 吳曦 rebellion of 1206–1207 (in which the Sìchuān commander Wú Xī declared himself king under Jīn protection) caught Chéng in his post; he abandoned office, gathered his unfinished Chūnqiū writings, and hid in An-gù-shān 安固山 to revise. The Chūnqiū fēn jì in 90 juan (KR1e0045) was finished there just before his death at age 37.
Liú Guāngzǔ’s tomb-inscription records four Chūnqiū works:
- Chūnqiū fēn jì 春秋分記 in 90 juan (KR1e0045) — surviving comprehensive historical reorganisation.
- Zuǒshì shǐ zhōng 左氏始終 in 36 juan — lost.
- Tōng lì 通例 in 20 juan — lost.
- Bǐ shì 比事 in 10 juan — lost.
So Chéng’s scholarly programme was overwhelmingly devoted to Zuǒzhuàn studies. The surviving Fēn jì is one of the great unrecognised achievements of Southern-Sòng classical historiography — methodologically the precursor of Gù Dònggāo’s mid-Qīng Chūnqiū dàshì biǎo — and earns from the SKQS tíyào a remarkably warm endorsement: “in this age of welling speculation, alone could examine the old text exhaustively, making source-and-stream and beginning-and-end distinctly visible.” His brother Chéng Gōngxǔ secured the work’s posthumous publication.
CBDB id 13806.