Chén Jūn 陳均
Late-Southern-Sòng historian. Zì Píngfǔ 平甫; hào Yúnyán 雲-巖. Native of Pútián 莆田 (modern Fújiàn). Lifedates undocumented; the catalog meta and standard sources give fl. 1209–1234. CBDB has no certain match (multiple 陳均 entries with different dynasties and dates).
The Sòng shǐ has no biography of him. What is recoverable: in early Duānpíng (1234) someone memorialized to the throne about his scholarly work; the court issued an edict to Fúzhōu to summon him in, granting him the office of Dígōng láng 迪功郎. The principal documentary witnesses are Lín Jié’s preface and Zhēn Déxiù’s Shàodìng 2 / 1229 preface — both at the head of the WYG-transmitted Jiǔcháo biānnián bèi yào.
His major work is the Sòng jiǔcháo biānnián bèi yào 宋九朝編年備要 (KR2b0025) in 30 juǎn, also (per Mǎ Duānlín) titled Biānnián jǔ yào 編年舉要 — a synoptic chronicle of the Northern Sòng nine reigns (Tàizǔ to Qīnzōng) drawn from official daily-records, Shí lù, and Lǐ Tāo’s Cháng biān, with cross-checks against ten or so other sources (Sīmǎ Guāng, Xú Dù, Zhào Rǔyú, etc.). Mǎ Duānlín’s Wénxiàn tōng kǎo records that Chén also composed a Zhōngxīng jǔ yào 中興舉要 in 14 juǎn and a Zhōngxīng bèi yào 中興備要 in 14 juǎn — the Southern-Sòng counterparts to the Northern-Sòng Bèi yào — but both Zhōngxīng works are now lost. The Bèi yào survives uniquely.
Methodologically, Chén Jūn took Sīmǎ Guāng’s gāng and Lǐ Tāo’s mù as twin formal models — explicitly imitating the Tōng jiàn gāngmù in form but, per Chén’s own preface, making it “directly recording the events without imposed praise-and-blame” (jù shì zhí shū, bù jiā bāo biǎn 據事直書，不加褒貶), thereby breaking with the Gāngmù’s evaluative apparatus. The work is consequently a useful Northern-Sòng synoptic source independent of the heavily-praise-and-blame tradition.