"Liutao", also known as "Taigong Liutao" and "Taigong Art of War", is the famous Huang Lao Daoist classic "Taigong" in the ancient Chinese pre-Qin period. An important part of China's classical military cultural heritage, its content is broad and profound, its thinking is exquisite and rich, and its logic is meticulous and rigorous, which is a concentrated embodiment of the essence of ancient Chinese military thought. The earliest explicit inclusion of this book was the Sui Shu Jing Bi Zhi, entitled "Zhou Wen Wangshi Jiang Wang". Jiang Wang is Jiang Taigong Lü Wang. But since the Song Dynasty, there have been people who have repeatedly questioned this. From the analysis of the contents of the book, the style of writing and the cultural relics excavated in recent years, it can be roughly concluded that the "Liutao" is a Huang Lao Daoist classic in the Warring States period. The book consists of six volumes, totaling sixty chapters. The content of "Liutao" is very extensive, and almost all issues related to war and various aspects are involved. The best part of it is its strategic and tactical theory.
In the bibliographies of the liutao, the articles are different, the versions are many changes, and the versions circulated have basically three systems.
(1) The systematic version of the Seven Books of the Book of Martial Arts
The Seven Books of the Book of Wu was compiled by the imperial court during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song to meet the needs of the martial arts examination. According to Li Tao's "Continuation of Zizhi Tongjianchang" volume 303 record: "In March of the third year of Yuanfeng (1080), the edict revised the books "Sun Zi", "Wu Zi", "Liu Tao", "Sima Fa", "Sanluo", "Wei Jizi", "Li Jing Asked Right" and other books. Volume 341 records: "In November of the sixth year of Yuanfeng (1083), Guozi Siye Zhu convinced: Chengnuma schooled "Sun Zi", "Wu Zi", "Sima Fa", "Wei Gong Qing", "Sanluo", and "Liutao". Zhu Fu, He Zhifei and many others compiled the "Seven Books of the Book of Wujing", which was published for a total of three years, and the general catalogue of the "Seven Books of the Book of Wujing", including the six volumes of "Liutao", according to the "History of Song and Electoral History", "The "Liutao" is not a complete book. Because the purpose of compiling the Seven Books was to select martial arts, the reviser He Fufei did a lot of finishing work, reduced the number of articles to sixty, readjusted the articles, removed the rotten elements in the original text, and became a concise and well-written version of the present "Liutao". Gu Shi's "Examination of Heavy Archaeology and Pseudo-Books" Yun: "The differences contained in the present "Liutao" and the "Qunshu Zhizhi" are no longer the old Han, Sui, and Tang Zhi, but have been revised by Song Yuanfengwen. ”
This time, the Seven Books of the Wujing were determined to be the content of the Wuju examination in a king-made manner, marking the official recognition of the status of the Pre-Qin Bingshu. From the Song Dynasty to the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Wujing ben has always occupied a dominant position in military science, and the "Seven Books of the Wujing" "Liutao" that we see today is the present "Liutao". From the beginning of the Seven Books of the Martial Classics, there are more than twenty surviving versions, and only the main ones are introduced here:
1. Zhu Fu's "Seven Books of Correction of the Martial Classics" and "Liutao"
The fang periodical "Liutao" was originally stored in the Shanghai Library, and the beginning of the volume has the song text of Guozi Siye ZhuFuzhi. This version of "Liutao" has no notes, the layout is narrow, twenty-eight lines per page, twenty-five words per line, the main text of the large character single line, the use of many vulgar characters, simplified characters, self-made characters, missing engraving, multi-engraving, empty lines appear from time to time. Through some words to avoid Zhao Heng of the Song Dynasty, it is deduced that this version was engraved at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty or the beginning of the Southern Crossing.
2. Southern Song Dynasty Emperor Xiaozong's official edition of the Seven Books of the Book of Wu (武經七書) "Liutao"
This book is the publication of the "Seven Books of the Song Ben Wu Jing" that is common today, and it is very popular and influential. Originally held by Kiyoroku Shingen Hara Soong-ro, in 1906, Yanosuke Iwasaki of Japan purchased all the books in the Sora-roku collection, so the book was stored in the Shizukado Bunko in Tokyo, and this engraving is very good. In 1935, Shanghai Hanfenlou photocopied the "Continuation of the Ancient Yi Series", which photocopied and published the "Seven Books of the Wujing" of the Song Magazine of Jingjiatang in Tokyo, entitled "Seven Books of the Wujing of the Song Dynasty", and since then, this edition has been passed down to this day. After Reading the book, Lu Xinyuan wrote in the Seven Books of the Song Magazine Wujing: "Song Shu Ben. Twenty lines per page, nineteen words per line, with the number of words and the name of the publisher in the center of the page. Yin, Hui, Zhen, Heng, Police, Respect, Completion, Structure, Concession, and Caution are all lacking and should be published when they were published by Emperor Xiaozong of Song. "The era of this edition can be seen from the Lu inscription, the layout of this edition is wider, the font is clear, there are no notes, but there are also flaws.
3. "Lecture Notes on the Seven Books of Shi"
Shi Zimei's "Lecture Notes on the Seven Books of Shi Shi", a total of forty-two volumes, including six volumes of "Liutao", this book explains the passages, chapters and sentences of the original text, and cites other documents such as "Lao Tzu" and "Guan Zi" for annotation, and the bing books also cite each other. As a comprehensive interpretation of the Liutao, Shi Shi was the first of its kind, so the imperial court used it as a textbook for samurai. Shi Shiyan has never been said before, filling in the theoretical gaps and improving the military theoretical system. Therefore, this book has a great influence on the study of soldiers in later generations, and is a valuable reference material for researchers of "Liutao".
4. The "Six Tao Direct Solution" of the "Seven Books of the Martial Classics"
Liu Yin's commentary on the six volumes of the Liu Tao Zhi Xie in the Ming Dynasty has a concise meaning, preceded by a summary of the passages, and then the combination of the word interpretation and the sentence explanation, which is confirmed by historical facts, and is the best book in the "Seven Books of the Martial Classics". There are the thirty-first manuscript of Ming Hongwu and the twenty-second year of Chenghua Baoding prefect Zhao Ying.
(2) Unearthed literature "Liutao"
The Liutao version also comes in part from fragments of bamboo excavated underground, and there are currently four versions that are the most important:
1. Yinqueshan Han Tomb Bamboo Sketch "Liutao"
In 1972, there are remnants of "Liutao" in the Han Jian excavated in Linyi, Shandong, and the seven parts in the simplified version correspond to the biography "Liutao", and the remaining seven are "Lü's Spring and Autumn", "HanShu", "Qunshu Zhijiao", "Northern Tang Dynasty Copy", "Taiping Imperial Dictionary" quoted in the "Liutao" anthology and anthology, and the bamboo Jane excavated this time provides new information for studying the structure, circulation and age of the "Liutao". The suspicion of liutao as a forgery has continued for hundreds of years, and the emergence of archaeological data has negated previous incorrect claims. Experts deduce that the time of this tomb should be the fifth year of the Han Wu Emperor Yuan Hunt, that is, 118 BC, and the writing date of Zhu Jian should be earlier than the time of the tomb, because Zhu Jian did not shy away from the names of several emperors in the early Han Dynasty, such as the names of Emperors Bang, Heng, Qi, and Che in Zhu Jian. The excavated documents strongly prove that this book was widely circulated before the Western Han Dynasty, and its age must be in the pre-Qin Warring States period. In 1985, the Cultural Relics Publishing House published "Bamboo Jane of the Han Tomb of Yinqueshan (I)", and published the photos, facsimiles and interpretations of the Bamboo Jane of "Liutao". There are 146 pieces of bamboo, more than 2100 words, and four titles. The advent of the Bamboo Sketchbook of the Yinqueshan Han Tomb ,六韬, has been highly valued by the academic community.
2. Bamboo sketch of "Taigong" unearthed in Dingxian County, Hebei Province
In 1973, the bamboo book "Taigong" was excavated from the Han Tomb No. 40 in Dingxian County, Hebei Province, and the excavation of the "Taigong" book was of great significance to the study of "Liutao". The "Taigong" bamboo Jane excavated this time has found thirteen titles such as "The Sixth > of the Way of Governing the Country", "The Tenth of the State with Etiquette", and "The Thirtyth of the Eight Prohibitions of the State". There are also some written words such as "Wu Wang Qing" or "Tai Gong Yue", but the content is unknown, and some sentences are quoted in previous Tang literature, some are quoted from the "Six Searches", and some are quoted from the "Golden Kui". Judging from the excavated bamboo janes, there should be many articles in the "Taigong", and there are also many who have died, and some of the bamboo janes have only titles and no content, so it seems that the bamboo janes are much richer than the content of the present one. His Han tomb Zhujian was dated around 55 BC, which provides new evidence that the Liutao was circulated before the Han Dynasty. The explanatory text was officially published in the 4th issue of "Cultural Relics" in 2001. The fragment has 144 pieces, more than 1400 words, and 13 titles. Although there are not many texts, they have extremely high academic value for the study of "Liutao".
3. Tang wrote "Liutao"
That is, the fragments of the Tang manuscript "Liutao" in the Dunhuang writing volume, there are 201 lines in total, and one line contains half a word. Twenty titles. The original is in the Library of the Congress in Paris, France, and the Beijing Library has microfilm, and this version is the earliest paper copy of "Liutao", which is extremely precious.
(3) "Liutao" compilation
Due to the serious additions and deletions of "Liutao" in circulation, this "Liutao" is no longer the original appearance, in order to understand the original appearance, sort out the context of its development and the history of evolution, the compilation of the "Liutao" anon text is the most important. Qing Dynasty scholars did a great deal of compilation work, and they found the scattered contents of the present "Liutao" from various ancient books and collected them, which were of great value to the study of "Liutao". More representative is the volume of the Liutao (六韬) compiled by Sun Xingyan, who said in the preface: "There are many people who are not in this book in the books of the Present Yilin, The General Dictionary, the Selected Notes on The Texts, and the Taiping Imperial Records, and there are many people who are not in this book, such as King Wu of Wu avenging his father and the genus of Taigong Shooting Ding Hou, song zhiru doubted that its meaning was impure, and when the seven books of YuanFeng were deleted or published, the Tang and early Song people still quoted the whole book. This explains the situation that Sun Shi compiled liutao from a large number of similar books. In the late Qing Dynasty, Tan Xian's "Futang Diary" was also yun; "Although the "Six Searches" are not too public, they must be ancient books. Precision is deep, ancient sayings, can be spied also. The teaching of the soldiers may have profits and losses, so the Sun family's compilation of anograms is found in the Tang and Song dynasties, which are different in complexity and simplicity, and the benefits can be said. "In the process of circulating ancient books, profit and loss situations sometimes exist, and if you want to peek into the source, it is extremely important to compile the text.
Wang Zongyi's compilation of the Taigong Martial Arts (Qing Guangxu Fifth Year, 1879 Edition) is a volume of seven articles, including the Qing Guangxu Zhongtong Lu Clan Edition and the Shanghai Wenrui Lou 1913 Lithograph. Wang compiled the "Taigong War Law" from a large number of documents, because the "Taigong War Law" and "Liutao" belong to the Taigong system, which should be fully paid attention to in the compilation and research. Wang Shiyun: "The compilation of the present, the regulations of the first district, the Japanese "Saying Garden" cites the "Taigong Art of War", the Japanese "Dai Li" quotes the "Zhou Shu", the Japanese "Imperial Book" and "Yilin" quotes "Jin Kui", "Conspiracy", the Japanese "Zuo", "Guo", "History", "Han", "< Tongdian", "Yu Lan" quotes "Zhou Shu", "Zhou Shu • Wu Name", "Japanese Zhou, Han, Sui, and Tang People cite "Book of Soldiers", "Military Zhi", "Art of War", Japanese Tang Dynasty Book cites "Six Eyes", Nichijin "Six Searches" of the ancients, The Japanese "Huangshi Gongji" Anthology, in the similarities, Don't be a chapter, it is combined into the "Taigong War Law". Wang listed all the articles quoting history books and similar books one by one, which is more comprehensive. In addition, the compilation of "Liutao" is more famous than Hong Yixuan's "Taigong Jin Kui", Yan Kejun's "(Liutao) Anthony Text", which is included in the "Six Dynasties of the Three Dynasties of the Qin and Han Dynasties of the Three Dynasties of the Whole Ancient Dynasty", and Wang Renjun, Sun Tongyuan, and Huang Shuang's compilation of "Liutao" in one volume each. These essays are of non-negligible value in examining the original appearance of Liutao.
In short, judging from the bibliography of "Liutao", there are many versions of "Liutao" that have been handed down since the Han Dynasty, making it difficult for people to see its original appearance. It was not until Song compiled the Seven Books of the Book of Wu that the Liutao formed a fixed version, the present edition. However, the entire historical text has not been handed down, and there are many passages scattered in various classics. The complexity of the circulation situation has brought great difficulties to those who study "Liutao", so the current people's study of "Liutao" should not be limited to the present book, but should trace its clues from the bibliography, and also pay attention to the various citation and anonal systems of "Liutao", so as to grasp the "Liutao" more accurately and comprehensively. The academic community should make full use of these precious documents to strive to understand its original appearance, clarify the context of its development and the history of its evolution. (Xie Wenchao)