Abstract
Most researchers in Chinese studies shy away from the ‘superstitious’ material in the Sui shu 隋書 ‘Wuxing zhi’ 五行志 (the History of the Sui ‘Treatise on the Wuxing’), preferring to reduce the messages it would convey to the purely political and invoking Liu Zhiji’s condemnations of such treatises in his Shitong 史通 (Generalities on History). This essay suggests that such treatises in the official histories may provide some of the best entry points into the distinctive cast of mind of their compilers in their ventures into world-making. After all, both rulers and officials often subscribed to the belief, reiterated in the Five Classics, that history’s patterns, as reflected in the resonant cosmos, could be read not only for possible insights into past events but also as reliable guides to the future. The Sui shu ‘Wuxing zhi’ therefore becomes an important part of the educational plan for princes and those who serve them. The essay also attests the great flexibility of the formal aspects of such treatises, whose categories grow, shrink and change to adapt to new realities on the ground.
Abstrait
La plupart des chercheurs en études chinoises ignorent les matériaux «superstitieux» dans le «Wuxing zhi» 五行志 du Sui shu 隋書 («Traité sur les Wuxing» de l’Histoire des Sui), préférant réduire le message qu’il transmet aux données purement politiques, en invoquant les critiques formulées sur ces traités par Liu Zhiji dans son Shitong 史通 (Généralités sur l’histoire). Le présent chapitre se propose de montrer que ce genre de traités présent dans les histoires officielles peut fournir de belles portes d’entrée dans l’esprit de leurs compilateurs dans leur entreprise de création du monde. Après tout, les souverains comme les fonctionnaires croyaient souvent, comme cela était répété dans les Cinq classiques, que les schémas historiques, dont on trouve les résonances dans le cosmos, pouvaient être lus non seulement pour obtenir une connaissance du passé, mais étaient également des guides pour l’avenir. Le «Wuxing zhi» du Sui shu devient ainsi une partie importance du projet éducatif des princes et de ceux qui les servent. Ce chapitre met également en lumière la grande flexibilité des aspects formels de ce type de traités, dont les catégories augmentent, diminuent et sont modifiées afin de s’adapter aux nouvelles réalités du terrain.
A ruler must cut himself off from
Heaven before Heaven will cast him off.
—Gu Yong (fl. 36–8 BCE)
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Notes
- 1.
Lehoux (2012: 6). Although ‘omens’ can be ‘distinguished’ from portents, in this essay, as in the Sui shu ‘Wuxing zhi’, they are interchangeable.
- 2.
- 3.
This way of thinking is particularly evident in the Documents traditions.
- 4.
- 5.
See below: three good omens appear in Sui shu for example, and more in later treatises.
- 6.
Kern (2000) noted this fifth point, but presumed ‘normal’ and unrevised readings for much of Western Han. By contrast, I presume continual revision during the Han and post-Han periods, given the content included in successive treatises. Interestingly enough, what look like a good omen to the modern eye is not necessarily thought to be a good omen to the ancients. One example should suffice to illustrate this point: the Original Transcription of the Five Planets Prognostications, speaking of the Tianzi (The Son of Heaven), says you, lao yu kong 懮牢獄空 (‘The Son of Heaven is anxious and the prisons are empty’); cf. Kaiyuan zhanjing 開元占經 (Prognosticatory Classic of the Opening Epoch Reign [713–41]), 13.3 in Siku Quanshu 四庫全書 (Complete Books of the Four Chambers), Wenyuange edition, Intranet version, (2007).
- 7.
The ‘Wuxing zhi’ is located in Sui shu, 22.617–23.670. For example, items 1–24 (Sui shu, 22.618–623) concern the Five Resources; items 240–258 (Sui shu, 23.663–665) speak of the wuxing, in terms of one or more Phase conquering another. See the Appendix.
- 8.
Zuozhuan, Lord Wen, Year 7: ‘Together the Six Resources/Repositories and the Three Affairs are called the Nine Endeavors. Water, fire, metal, wood, earth, and grain are the Six Resources. Aligning oneself with virtue, using things advantageously, and enriching [the people’s?] livelihoods are the Three Affairs. These all designate meritorious activities by the ruler worth celebrating in song’. The Han shu preface to its ‘Wuxing zhi’ makes this explicit; there the ‘Great Plan’ is cast as precursor to the Annals, said to inspire both the ‘Three Traditions’ for the Chunqiu and the ‘Hongfan wuxing zhi’, on which the ‘Wuxing zhi’ draws. See Han shu, 21.1316–1317; Lu (1998: 413–417), for further details; also Song shu, ‘Wuxing zhi’, 30.879–880.
- 9.
As the preface to the Sui shu ‘Wuxing zhi’ states, ‘Heaven has its seven sources of light, and Earth its wuxing’ (Sui shu, 22.617). Items 197, 243–258 (Suishu, 23.663–665) concern earthquakes or landslides.
- 10.
The early Western Han Documents master Fu Sheng, whom some (but not all) traditional sources credit as compiler of some or all of the ‘Hongfan wuxing zhuan’, is not named in the Sui shu treatise. The ‘Hongfan wuxing zhuan’ (compiler unknown) is cited repeatedly (34× altogether), however. Besides Fu Sheng, tradition names other possible classical masters as compilers, including Xiahou Shichang 夏侯始昌, Liu Xiang 劉向, Xu Shang 許商, and Liu Xin 劉歆, but to date no one knows the identity of the author or compiler. At this remove, we can only say that the extant version of the ‘Hongfan wuxing zhuan’ includes, most substantially, omen readings ascribed to Dong Zhongshu, Liu Xiang, and Liu Xin (all of whom long post-date Fu Sheng by at least a century). In my view, any master whose readings is explicitly identified is unlikely to be the compiler of the ‘Wuxing zhuan’. For Jing Fang’s predictions, which are cited repeatedly in both the Han shu and Sui shu ‘Wuxing zhi’, see Guo (2007). The propensity to cite earlier, unimpeachable authorities may account for the decision to cite Yanzi 晏子, the pre-Qin statesman, when dealing with a particular category of omens. See Items 172, 173.
- 11.
The wisdom displayed by these men ‘in the know’ clearly offsets the dull benightedness of most court officers. Item 174, however, shows the benightedness of the masses.
- 12.
Items 111, 131. The portrayal in Item 173 shows that the treatise writers thought it right for Sui Wendi to put down rebels. Item 164 shows him to be unaware of cosmic resonance. And Item 138 calls Sui Wendi ‘deluded’. For the charges that the Sui was overly harsh, which condemns both rulers of Sui, but especially Sui Yangdi as counterpart to the First Emperor of Qin (Qin Shihuang) , see Wright (1959).
- 13.
Han shu, 21.1316–1317, for one example. Cf. Xiang (2001).
- 14.
See, e.g., Items 18, 19 for ‘evil ministers’; 64x the treatise mentions rebellion, with the rebellion by Hou Jing portrayed 23x.
- 15.
Items 128, 184, for Sui; Item 185 for Great Tang.
- 16.
See Gentz (2015), passim.
- 17.
Hirasawa (2011), Sakamoto (1988). The Han shu omen treatise, as any reader of Liu Zhiji’s Shitong would know, is foundational. Men of the governing elite did not necessarily know the omen treatises generated for the Six Dynasties (many of which are late in date anyway), but if they knew any omen treatises, they almost certainly knew the Han shu treatise. That is why Shitong, 3.61 directs his main critique at Ban Gu. See also Shitong, 3.62 for the internal contradictions in readings. See also Note 23 below.
- 18.
See McMullen (2012) on Tang ideas of remonstrance.
- 19.
Citation of the Documents initially surprises, until one remembers that the Nine Provinces of the ‘Yugong’ 禹貢 chapter are meant to presage the Nine Sections of the Documents’ ‘Great Plan’, and Yu by well-attested authorities had received from Heaven the ‘Luoshu’, a revelation text. These assertions are already laid out in the preface to the Han shu ‘Wuxing zhi’ (Han shu, 27A.1315), where they are traced back to the legendary Jizi 箕子, sage advisor to the founder of Western Zhou.
- 20.
Shiji, 27.1343.
- 21.
- 22.
Xunzi 17/81/16-17-17/82/1. The term buce 不測, taken from the Yijing 易經 ‘Xici zhuan’ , describes things ‘divine’ (shen 神) , but those ‘in the know’ may penetrate the unfathomable to a certain extent. For this definition of shen, see ‘Xici, shang’, par. 5, in the Zhou Yi yinde. For humans as ‘naked creatures’ (or, in baleful cases, ‘vipers’), see He (2011). The earlier ‘Wuxing’ treatises, Han shu, 27C(a).1441 and Jin shu, 29.884, emphasize the ‘viperous’ character of human beings. That meaning presumably is retained in the Sui shu.
- 23.
Shiqi shi shangque, vol. 1, 13/7a, mentions a few examples of such contradictions in the Han shu ‘Wuxing zhi’. Many more could be mentioned. Tongdian 通典, juan 185, talks of competing calendrical theories on such matters. Liu Zhiji’s 劉知幾 (661–721 CE) Shitong devotes the entirety of juan 19 and much of juan 20 to what he regards as stupidities and errors in the Shiji and Han shu treatment of omens. Item 159 appears to offer contradictory readings, but this may reflect only a modern contradiction.
- 24.
Su’s work was preceded by foundational Japanese scholarship, esp. that of Hirasawa 平澤步 (2011); Sakamoto Tomotsugu 坂本具償 (specialist in the Chunqiu fanlu) (1988). Sakamoto (1988: 55) notes the ‘basic agreement’ ascribed to the omen theories of Dong Zhongshu and Liu Xiang would not have looked like agreement to Liu Xiang. See, esp. Su (2013: 138–145).
- 25.
Specifically, one must consider the loss of multiple intervening omen traditions.
- 26.
There is already by mid-Eastern Han, and indeed, long before, a well-established polemical tradition. We could name works on the court conferences (Shiqu and then Bohu), as well as works that dispute the dominant Academicians’ traditions, which were themselves frequently at odds with one another.
- 27.
For example, in Han times, there were no fewer than five Five Phases theories in simultaneous operation. See Nylan (1992: 15n4, 7). We also know that Five Phases theories were adapted by each thinker, but when to invoke which type of theory—even that modern scholars do not know.
- 28.
Jiu Tang shu, 79.2718, Li’s biography, identifies him as author of the Jin shu ‘Wuxing zhi’, but Li’s biography says nothing about the Sui shu ‘Wuxing zhi’. The Zhonghua shuju editors, who identify most of the other authors of the Sui shu treatises in their ‘Publisher’s Explanations’ (chuban shuoming 出版說明, 2–3), identify Li Chunfeng as the author of only two Suishu treatises: the ‘Treatise on Harmono-metrology and Mathematical Astronomy’ (Lü-li zhi) and the ‘Heavenly Patterns Treatise’ (‘Tianwen zhi’) . Moreover, major discrepancies exist in the treatments of omens in the Jin shu and Sui shu ‘Wuxing zhi’. See Xu (2006).
- 29.
See Liu (2010: 261).
- 30.
Drège (1991) makes it clear how much destruction to palace libraries typically accompanied the downfall of a particular dynasty.
- 31.
In ‘Kang gao’ and ‘Pangeng, shang ’, the formula wang ruo yue 王若曰 figures prominently, as noted in Wang (1988). Cf. par. 28 of the Documents’ ‘Great Plan’, where timely weather phenomena appear in connection with auspicious and baleful portents. In several Documents chapters, the ruler (variously identified as wang or huangdi) speaks (e.g., 王/皇帝若曰).
- 32.
This offers a stark contrast with Han-era views. Han shu, 88.4368, for example, identifies comets as the worst sort of anomaly, associated with the essential or concentrated spirit of Earth, with implications for rule on earth.
- 33.
Item 228 (a single entry) shows the ruler of the time ‘getting the message’ from Heaven and reforming his conduct.
- 34.
Sui shu, 23.660–663.
- 35.
One would like to know why this category of ‘children’s ditties’, so prominent in the Han and early Six Dynasties interpretations, nearly disappears from the Sui shu treatise.
- 36.
For the first, see Li (2007: 202‒248); for the second, contrast the fires in Lord Xi, year 20 (640 BCE), and Lord Zhao, Year 18 (524 BCE). I thank Mark Csikszentmihalyi for bringing this passage to my attention.
- 37.
Sui shu, 22A.633.
- 38.
See Item 228.
- 39.
A whole category of bad omens is dubbed shi yao 詩妖 (‘poetic portents’), and a second concerns ‘words that do not follow’ (yan bu cong 言不從). The phrase shi yao appears 4× in the Han shu ‘Wuxing zhi’, as a sub-category of ‘words that do not follow’. Outside of the Han shu and one late Eastern Han comment on a fire in Huidi’s palace, this phrase appears only in one received text in the whole of the Han literature, Wang Chong’s Lunheng.
- 40.
See particularly Items 96 and 135.
- 41.
Item 227.
- 42.
Item 186. The Qin dynasty adopted black as its patron, after all. For the baleful associations assigned to Qin, see Nylan (2017).
- 43.
Item 141; Sui shu, 23.646.
- 44.
The term ‘fire of Sui’ is never used anywhere else in the extant literature. For the Sui’s view of themselves as patronized by the Fire phase, see Sui shu, 1.15.
- 45.
See McMullen (2013: 335) for the Maoshi 毛氏 commentaries.
- 46.
You (2006: esp. 1, 5–6). Often, the theory takes the ‘man’ here to be not ‘humanity’ but the One Man, the ruler.
- 47.
See Han shu, 21.1316–1317. The best account of this is Liu (2014).
- 48.
Presumably in Eastern Han, frequent citation of Liu Xin’s authoritative views were ‘too hot to handle’ by officials eager to curry favor with the throne. See Hsü (1963).
- 49.
Jin shu, 21.800.
- 50.
Sui shu, 22.617–618.
- 51.
See Shitong 3.66–67; 19.533–555. However, we must not credit the eccentric Liu Zhiji with having great authority during his lifetime (see You 2006: esp. 3–4). And while Qian Daxin criticized Liu Zhiji for ‘critiques that don’t get at the heart of the matter’, Liu’s criticisms had the intended effect. See Qianyan tang wenji, 12.183–184. For a spirited (if hardly profound) defense of Liu Zhiji’s ‘contributions toward discerning lies’, see Geng (1992).
- 52.
聖王常由德義消伏災咎, ibid. The Sui shu ‘Jingji zhi’ traces the growth of credulity in portents to the Eastern Han liking for apocryphal traditions. See Sui shu, 32.948.
- 53.
Xin Tang shu 9.34.871–872; cf. Xin Wudai shi 59.705–706, and Xin Tang shu 34.873. For a Song scholar who opposed Ouyang Xiu’s view, see Zheng Qiao’s essay ‘On Calamities and Portents’, in Tongzhi, vol. 2, 1905.
- 54.
See Ma’s Wenxian tongkao, ‘Zixu’ 自序 (9b–10a).
- 55.
For details, see Chen (2007).
- 56.
Han shu, 27A.1315–1317.
- 57.
For details on Liu Xin, one of the three most wide-ranging polymaths of the Western Han dynasty, see Loewe (2014).
- 58.
This is identified by Yan Shigu 顏師古 (581–645 CE) as ‘one of the Three Lords of Yin’, meaning the highest posts in the Shang-Yin bureaucracy. As Jizi 箕子 was supposedly uncle of Zhou 紂, the bad last ruler of Shang, he is called fu shi 父師 rather than Taishi 太師, says Yan.
- 59.
Yan Shigu, cited in Han shu, 27A.1316n9, says: ‘‘The Lord’ 帝 means ‘The High Lord’ 上帝, i.e. ‘Heaven’ 天’. These two paragraphs repeat the opening lines of the ‘Great Plan’ chapter of the Documents.
- 60.
Here I follow early Western Han usage, rather than that of later Western Han, as there is no indication that these five xing represent Five Phases cosmology.
- 61.
Or, perhaps ‘Sovereign End’ (?). Note that the text doesn’t prescribe the precise manner to use when deploying the Five Resources. Some would reduce this term to da zhong 大中 (Great Centredness/Centrality). Ma Rong and others understand huang as jun 君 (‘the ruler’), whose counterpart below is shu min ji 庶民極. Ji refers to the ‘ultimate model’ or ze 則. See Shiji jijie, cited in Shiji, 38.1613n22. For further analysis, see Ma (2016).
- 62.
Here I think the term ‘Chunqiu’ refers not only to the Classic known as the Annals, but also to the years of the Han reigns. The number 12 is significant. There were twelve dukes of Lu recorded in the Annals; there were twelve Han rulers plus the regent Wang Mang, whom most deemed a usurper. The coincidence is thought to be important, indicating a cosmic cycle.
- 63.
Han shu, 25A.1317. Li Xun was active during the reign of Han Chengdi (r. 33–7 BCE) . He is cited a single time in the Han shu ‘Wuxing zhi’, in Han shu, 25B-xia.1429, where he is identified as a Courtier along with Yang Xiong. He cites the ‘Great Plan’ readings in his interpretation of a ‘drum omen’. Li’s biography is given in Han shu, 75.3179–3195, where his memorials are quoted at some length.
- 64.
Cf. Zhou Yi yinde, ‘Xici, xia’: 天下同歸而殊塗, which is cited in Shiji, 130.3288.
- 65.
Cf. Jin shu, 27.800, which also cites this.
- 66.
Probably referring to King Huai of Chu 楚懷王 (r. 328–299 BCE) . King Huai succeeded his father King Wei, who died in 329. In 299, King Huai was trapped and held hostage by King Zhao of Qin when he went to the Qin state to negotiate terms, and his son King Qingxiang ascended the throne. Eventually, King Huai managed to escape Qin but he was then recaptured. Three years later he died in captivity.
- 67.
Chang Hong, advisor to King Ling 靈王 of Zhou (r. 571–544 BCE) , is often treated as the most ancient known example of a magician.
- 68.
The ‘empty city birds’ find it hard to pick up scraps in a depopulated city ridden with plague and war. They symbolize the precariousness of human life in yuefu songs by the Six Dynasties, as in one poem ascribed to the Bao Zhao 鮑照 (405–466) of the Southern Dynasties (‘Dai kongcheng que’ 代空城雀, in juan 11 of Bao’s collected works, Bao Can ji) that begins: 雀乳四蔻, 空城之阿. See Yuefu shiji, juan 68. Ergo the poem by the same name by the Tang poet Li Bo/Bai (701–762). For the second omen, see the Documents, ‘Preface’ 序, for the ‘Gaozong rongri’ chapter; also Zhang Heng’s ‘Western Metropolitan fu’.
- 69.
Analects 12.1; Xunzi 18/88/23.
- 70.
The Fire God is called Zhurong 祝融, also Huilu 回禄. This god supposedly appeared at Qiansui. See Jin lou zi, ‘Jianjie’ chapter.
- 71.
As a check of the electronic Siku quanshu shows, this is the only time this four-character phrase (a proverb?) appears in published works. For the events, see Guoyu, ‘Zhou yu’ 周語: ‘Zhurong fell at Chongshan, that was the downfall [of Xia]. When Huilu (i.e., Zhurong) was trusted at Qiansui, that was the start of the Shang’ 祝融降於崇山。其亡也。回祿信於黔隧, 商之興也.
- 72.
Du Yu, Chunqiu Zuoshi zhuan (xu), 12/1a: 裁成義類者。皆據舊例而發義, 指行事以正褒貶. Cf. Laozi, section 7.58.5.
- 73.
An allusion to Laozi, section 7.58.5: ‘Disaster good fortune relies upon. Good fortune hides disaster’ 祸兮福之所倚。福兮祸之所伏, which speaks of things visible (including good and bad fortune) relying on what is hidden.
- 74.
An allusion to Gu Lie nü zhuan, juan 3, anecdote 5 (‘The mother of Sunshu Ao’ 孫叔敖母), ICS 5.3; also Han shu, 30.1773, which cites this in connection with the ‘Five Constant Virtues’ (五常之德).
- 75.
Sui shu, 22.617–618.
- 76.
Traditionally, this theory has been ascribed to Dong Zhongshu, and hence he is often described as the origin of the omen treatises; see, e.g., Takagi (1988: 72). For statements subscribing to Tianren ganying, see Wei shu, 25.807; 91.1945; Bei Zhou shu, 78.1764.
- 77.
- 78.
Shiji, 121.3128. For the middle-period apocrypha, see Xun (2014).
- 79.
- 80.
For the Han thinkers’ views, see Hirasawa (2011). Similarly, Zheng Xuan (130–200), quoted in commentary to the Shiji, 1.84: says, ‘The wuxing and the Four Seasons are the tools by which one governs by practicing full virtue’ 五行四時盛德所行之政也.
- 81.
- 82.
See Ban Gu’s Bohu tong, section. 8 (Capitals 京師): 王者必即土中者何.
- 83.
Sakamoto (1988).
- 84.
See Yan (2007: 243).
- 85.
And while the Wei shu ‘Lingzheng zhi’ 靈徵志 mentions Buddhism in eight entries, six of those entries relate to the time when the dynasty is just about to collapse, and its capital is being moved to Luoyang.
- 86.
See Tang (1991: 297).
- 87.
- 88.
See Hou Han shu, 13.3272; cf. Fengsu tongyi, where similar readings are given.
- 89.
See Sou shen ji, 7.2a.
- 90.
Sui shu, 22.629.
- 91.
- 92.
For more analysis, see Yang (2005: 93‒99).
- 93.
Such as Hans Bielenstein, Homer H. Dubs, and those who follow them.
- 94.
The broad outline of this theory can be read in the biographical chapter for Dong Zhongshu in Han shu 56.
- 95.
See Sui shu, 32.948, which makes this claim, tracing the credulity and supernatural turn to the Eastern Han apocryphal writings.
- 96.
Sui shu, 22.655.
- 97.
Huayan jing 華嚴經 (Flower Garland Sutra, in Sanskrit Avataṃsaka Sūtra). For more information, see Zong and Liu (1987: 377). As Sui Yangdi’s extravagances included excursions in a ‘dragon boat’ near the capital, there may be echoes here of earlier misrule. See Sui shu, 3.63–64.
- 98.
- 99.
See entry No. 95.
- 100.
Sui shu, 22.636–637. Legend says that Zhigong became an eleven-sided Guanyin bodhisattva.
- 101.
See Mutian (1978: 60).
- 102.
Item 180: Sui shu, 23.652.
- 103.
This point is made by Yan (2007: 247).
- 104.
Sui shu, 34.1039 (said in ‘Jingji zhi’) 聖人推其終始。以通神明之變. On the phrase tongbian 通變, see Sivin (1991).
- 105.
Sui shu, 23.662. Buddhist monks were also using yin/yang cycles and astronomical signs to formulate predictions, as we learn from Sui shu 44.1222; 77.1753–1754. Rebels often associated themselves with Maitreya, the Buddha of the coming age.
- 106.
See Tang (1983: 203).
- 107.
Sui shu, 23.662–663. Elsewhere Sui shu, 35.1099 says that the Buddhists were inclined to tell lies, and rely on illusionistic tricks to delude the masses and induce chaos. Cf. Tang (1982: 1, 3).
- 108.
Takagi (1988: 78) concludes that neither the ‘content nor the scope’ of ren ke ever stays the same across the ‘Wuxing zhi’ included in the official histories. Table 2 (p. 77) shows this at a glance, with one important aspect of the category (the predictive) dropping out entirely in the official histories from late imperial China. Zheng Qiao, in his general preface to his Tongzhi, remarked on the proliferation of materials assigned in the later ‘Wuxing zhi’ to the various categories.
- 109.
For example, qingtan is mentioned in the Jin shu 11x, but not once in the Jin shu ‘Wuxing zhi’. It is mentioned 3x in the Liang shu, but not in the ‘Wuxing zhi’ for that compilation.
- 110.
- 111.
Entry Nos. 95, 96, 135, both related to Hou Jing’s rebellion. See Sui shu, 22.637 (‘Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 composed a five-character verse 五言詩 that said that “Yi Fu and Ping Shu [two eminent court officials] sat and debated the concept of emptiness’ even as Hou Jing’s rebellion was brewing”’), 22.643 (‘The ruler and officials only spoke about the Buddhist canon and Mystery Learning—that and nothing else’ 君臣唯講佛經。談玄而已).
- 112.
Balazs (1964: Chap. 14); cf. Lü (2005: 1245). Lü (2005: 1246) remarks that the talkers soon merely collected theories and sought to score debating points, exhibiting little curiosity about real life and proper behavior. See Jiao (2009: 86–87), for the dwindling of reputations for qingtan after the Zhengshi period, also the lack of ‘new discoveries’ through that form of conversation.
- 113.
Analects 18/8 has Kongzi saying, ‘There is no fixed ‘may” and no fixed ‘may not”’. This was quoted as justification for libertine behavior; see Mather (2002: 68). Lü (2005: 1235), insists upon this often over-looked point. Lü speculates that after Wang Mang’s usurpation, leading officials at court hesitated to claim classical authority for policy making, but that seems too simplistic an analysis (1240). More likely, officials had grown wary of ascribing moral authority to the political symbols successive courts manipulated (the Mingtangs, the Biyongs, the Taixues).
- 114.
Sui shu, 77.1753.
- 115.
Chunqiu fanlu 14.3(五行五事第六十四). Cf. Taixuan jing, 438–448.
- 116.
Sui shu, 22.625. Interestingly enough, Tang Taizong agreed that the Sui rulers had remarkable talent, despite their misrule. See Zhenguan zheng yao, 566–567.
- 117.
- 118.
The language of entry No. 73 is, for example: ‘When words do not follow’ [i.e. are not compliant, are wayward], this is termed “disorderly”’ 言之不從。是謂不乂.
- 119.
For xin bu rong/rui, see e.g. Han shu, 27B(c).1406; for huangji, see e.g. Han shu, 27A.1376, 27C(a).1471. Sui shu does refer to huangji in the ‘Tianwen zhi’. For the ‘Great Plan’ chapter, see Nylan (1992).
- 120.
For example, even in the Tang critical thinkers such as Liu Zhiji 劉知幾 (661–721 CE), author of Shitong 史通, began to target the errors and contradictions they saw in the earlier ‘Wuxing zhi’, especially that of Ban Gu. Liu Zhiji’s juan 19 of Shitong is devoted to critiques of Ban Gu’s ‘Wuxing zhi’.
- 121.
Zhao Yi writes a brief entry about the circumstances of writing the Sui shu treatises, in which Li Chunfeng is named not as the compiler of the ‘Wuxing zhi’, but as the compiler of the Jin shu treatises. See his Nian er shi shi zha ji, 15.206–207. According to Zhao Yi, the Sui shu originally had no treatises, but rather later compilers brought together [the material in?] the treatises for the previous four dynasties of Liang 梁 Chen 陳, Qi 齊, and Zhou 周, to add to that of Sui, so that the treatises ‘covered’ five dynasties. As two scholars (one of them Yan Shigu 顏師古) had worked on the text without completing it, the Tang emperor then ordered Wei Zheng 魏徵 to finish it and Fang Xuanling 房玄齡 to oversee the completion, while Yan Shigu, Kong Yingda, and others were ordered to work together on it. The Appraisals (lun 論) were all written by Wei Zheng. A group of people were set to writing the treatises for the five aforementioned dynasties, of whom Li Chunfeng was one.
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Nylan, M. (2019). The ‘Treatise on the Wuxing’ (Wuxing zhi). In: Morgan, D., Chaussende, D. (eds) Monographs in Tang Official Historiography. Why the Sciences of the Ancient World Matter, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18038-6_7
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