Liu Ming | I am related to Song Ben's "Xunzi"

In 2007, I graduated from the Department of Chinese of Tsinghua University and went to work at the National Library of China, where I was assigned to the Rare Books Group. Soon, the state launched the "Chinese Ancient Books Protection Plan", and the first batch of national precious lists should be declared and evaluated. Later, the leader arranged for me to attend the third training course on the census of ancient books and listen to lectures by expert teachers. The most impressive thing was that Mr. Li Zhizhong talked about the Song Ben, and he specifically mentioned that there was a Song Ben "Xunzi" in the collection, which was carved beautifully; he also said that there was a Tang Zhongyou who also carved "Xunzi" in Taizhou, sent His mother-in-law Jin to induce Jiang Hui to carve the book, and Jiang Hui was imprisoned for forging the Huizi version... It was very vivid and interesting.

After the training, I returned to the group, and the leader arranged for me to fill in the declaration form for precious ancient books, and at the same time to go to the rare book warehouse to check the good books to be declared, including checking the content of the declaration form, measuring the opening book and the size of the board frame. This made me, a fledgling young man, see many first-class rare books in the storeroom like Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden, and see the Song edition book "Xunzi" in physical form.

In 2008, the first special exhibition of the National Rare Ancient Books List exhibited Song Ben's "Xunzi", and I was honored to serve as the duty docent of the special exhibition. Unfortunately, apart from telling the social audience that "Xunzi" is a Song carved book, a solitary book passed down from generation to generation, and the engraving is as big as money and printed beautifully, I can't tell anything else. After the special exhibition, I summarized my experience in doing the explanatory work and felt that I still needed to have a deeper understanding of the exhibits, so that I could speak more richly and fully.

In 2009, the second batch of special exhibitions of national precious ancient books exhibited the Song engraved "Yangzi Fayan" collected by the Liaoning Provincial Library, which was specially displayed in the Han cabinet, which was very eye-catching. I heard mr. experts say that the engraving method of this "Yangzi Fayan" is the same as that of "Xunzi", and it was also translated in the middle and late Period of the Southern Song Dynasty. Suddenly there is a sense of mao zedong, the original Song Dynasty carved by the same family or belong to the same system of books, will have similarity in knife method, layout and line. At that time, I had an idea to study "Xunzi" carefully.

It just so happened that since the end of 2008, when the ministry began to plan the writing of Song Yuanshan's book, I chose "Xunzi" and flipped through the reconstructed rare books of this book page by page. The two characters of "Dun" and "Kuo" were found, of course, it was a carved copy of Ning Zongshi. The engraver Weng Sui participated in the engraving of the Jiading Fourth Year (1211) Jiang YouJitai Ben "Spring and Autumn Prosperity" and the Jiading Fifteenth Year (1222) Nan Kang Junben "Li Li Jing Chuan Tong Xie Continuation", Weng Sui was a Jiangxi engraver. I suspect that "Xunzi" is a Jiangxi engraving, but I am bitter that there is no more evidence.

By chance, when I was writing the "Filial Piety Classic", "Analects" and "Mencius" of the Yuan Xiangtai Yue Clan in the collection, I read that Mr. Zhang Zhengxiu was very inspired to examine that the Xiangtai Yue Clan was Yue Jun, not the Song Yue Ke, based on the records of the Yuanren Zheng Yuanyou's "Qiao Wu Ji". Realizing that the Yuan people went to the Song Dynasty, some records of the Yuan people may provide a lot of first-hand information for understanding the Song edition of the book. When I got home and ate a meal in a hurry, I ran to the Tsinghua Library to check the yuanren's collection. One day I found a copy of Wu Shidao's "Collection of Rituals", which contains such a record: "Wu Junqian published this book in Caosi, Jiangxi, according to Yuanfeng Jianben, who was particularly good at it, and Chen Zhensun's "Book Record" also pushed him to be the most perfect. There are many false words in this examination, and the second gong gai has not tried to examine it carefully, and the difficulty of school engraving can not be accidental! In Jiading, Quan Zhi Longxingteng forgave the new ones who were destroyed again, and did not reach this. That is to say, during the Jiading period, Cao Siteng of Jiangxi Province forgave the old copy of the money that was long and clean. I'm so excited, is Song Ben's "Xunzi" a re-engraving of Teng Qiang's forgiveness? Time and engraving can be matched, and I have to speculate.

In the process of looking through the materials, I noticed that the "Xunzi" engraved by Xi Ningjian was called The Jianben of Xi Ning, and some of them were called Yuanfeng Jianben, and they were all called Song people' names. Momentarily puzzled, the feelings of bitterness, confusion and disappointment accompanied me for several nights. I casually flipped through the text of the book I had written, and paused when my eyes fell on the title of the collator. Lu Bi's aura, suddenly appeared, will there be "articles" in it? When I checked the "History of Song" and compared the biographies of each collegial surveyor, I found that the officials who participated in the engraving of "Xunzi" could be divided into two categories: those who supported Wang Anshi's change of law, and those who opposed the change of law. Finally, it was understood that when the Xiningjian school engraved "Xunzi", because Lü Jie, Zhao Jie, Tang Jie, Qian Gongfu, Yan Fu, and Han Duanyan opposed the change of law, they were dismissed or degraded, so that the engraving work of "Xunzi" was temporarily stopped, and it was not until the Yuanfeng years after the end of the change that the school engraving work was resumed and the final engraving was completed. This is why the Song people may call Xi Ning Jianben or Yuanfeng Jianben.

In this way, the "Xunzi" in the collection should be the Southern Song Dynasty Jiading Teng Qiangshu re-engraved Qian Tenant Book. His own shallow learning, the understanding of "Xunzi" can only reach this level, before and after the search "struggle", can be described as a spiritual "hard journey".

Source: Guangming Daily