This article was published in the 6th issue of "Bashu Historical Chronicles" in 2023
Qing Dynasty Bashu scholar Li Tiaoyuan
A Commentary on the Achievements of Philology
Chen He
Qing Dynasty Bashu scholar Li Tiaoyuan (1734-1803), a native of Luojiang, Mianzhou, Sichuan Province (now Luojiang District, Deyang City), was an encyclopedic scholar with rich and erudite writings. In the twenty-eighth year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1763), the 30-year-old Li Tiaoyuan Jinshi and the first, the second and eleventh places in the palace examination, were appointed as the Jishi of the Hanlin Academy, and successively served as the director of the Literature and Selection Department of the Ministry of Officials, the deputy examiner of the Guangdong Township Examination, the examiner Wailang, the Guangdong Xuezheng, and the Zhili Tongyongdao. In the 50th year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1785), he was falsely dismissed and returned to Sichuan, and after returning to his hometown, he no longer went out of office, and built a "10,000-volume building" at home, claiming to have a collection of 100,000 volumes, and the collection was extremely rich, and he entertained himself by reading and writing.
Li Tiaoyuan's writings are extremely rich, including literary works such as "Tongshan Poetry Collection", "Tongshan Anthology" and "Foolish Weng Ci", "Yucun Poems", "Yucun Words", "Yucun Songs", "Yucun Fuhua" and other poetics, drama, literary and artistic theory works, the compilation and publication of the food monograph "Xingyuan Lu", and the compilation and publication of large-scale series of books "Hanhai" and "Continuation of Hanhai" and other philological masterpieces, which have attracted a certain amount of attention at that time.
For this "hundred scholars", Zhao Erxun's "Qing History Manuscript" does not have a biography of Li Tiaoyuan, and "Qing History Manuscript Wenyuan Biography" does not have an account of Li Tiaoyuan, which shows that in the eyes of the Qing people, Li Tiaoyuan has no outstanding achievements, does not meet the standards of historical figures, and does not recognize his status in the mainstream literary circle of the Qing Dynasty. Even in the literature such as "Sichuan Tongzhi" and "Quanshu Poems of the National Dynasty" of Bashu Township, there are also some criticisms about Li Tiaoyuan's poems, but this is precisely the side proof of Li Tiaoyuan's love for folk culture and important contributions to sorting out folk literature.
After the Republic of China, Li Tiaoyuan collected, sorted out, and engraved the documents of the township, studied folk culture, promoted the development of Shu studies, and benefited the people of Xiangzi, as well as his academic achievements in many fields, which were gradually highly praised by all walks of life. For example, Mr. Huang Zhigang has articles such as "The Guiding Person of Sichuan Bangzi - Mr. Li Tiaoyuan", summarizing Li Tiaoyuan's achievements in Sichuan opera; More importantly, there have been a variety of biographies of Qing historical figures, and even the "Qing Historical Biography" praised Li Tiaoyuan for "his poems and writings, full of genius, without embellishment", "the wealth of the writings in Shu, Fei Mi and then the Yuan", and the "Hanhai" compiled and engraved by him "commends the sages and benefits to learn, which is very much called in the sea". It can be seen that with the erosion and elimination of time, since the 20th century, in addition to Li Tiaoyuan's painstaking works in academic research and the preservation of folk culture, his legendary experience, his brilliant talents, profound writings, and many achievements have gradually won the attention of more scholars and more people in the world.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the research on Li Tiaoyuan was gradually carried out, such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholars compiled the "Biography of Li Tiaoyuan", and the Sichuan Folklore Society and other academic teams set up a research committee; There is an increasing number of relevant studies on Li Tiaoyuan's writings and contributions in the fields of Sichuan cuisine and Sichuan opera, and there are also positive and negative criticisms, but the overall recognition of Li Tiaoyuan's academic achievements is the consensus of the academic community.
The Qing Dynasty was the heyday of philology, and the Qing government spent a lot of manpower and material resources to gather a large number of literati and scholars, collect ancient and modern books from all over the world, and compile many huge works. For example, 10,000 volumes of "Collection of Ancient and Modern Books", 900 volumes of "Quantang Poems", 42 volumes of "Kangxi Dictionary", 66 volumes of "Zhu Ziquanshu", etc. In particular, it took 20 years to gather more than 360 erudite experts to compile the "Siku Quanshu", which contains a total of 3,461 kinds of books and 79,309 volumes, which is the largest series of books in ancient China. Under the influence of the Qing government's trend of revitalizing literature and education and compiling classics, folk scholars also rose up to compile classics. For example, Xu Qianxue and Nalan Xingde engraved 1,800 volumes of "Tongzhitang Sutra Interpretation", Yan Kejun compiled 746 volumes of "The Three Dynasties of the Qin and Han Dynasties and Six Dynasties of the Ancient Dynasty", and Bao Tingbo and his son engraved 208 kinds of "Knowing Insufficient Zhai Series".
As a scholar living in the Qianjia period of the Qing Dynasty, Li Tiaoyuan was familiar with this craze, and naturally attached great importance to the collection, sorting, and compilation of documents, and successively compiled and engraved large-scale series of books such as "Hanhai" and "Continuation of Hanhai", and sorted out a large number of township documents. Therefore, it is very important to study the philological achievements, values, and characteristics of Li Tiaoyuan. Fortunately, the academic community has begun to study Li Tiaoyuan's philological achievements, and has achieved fruitful results. This paper attempts to sort out and summarize these achievements, and find new academic growth points, in order to promote the deepening of Li Tiaoyuan's research.
One
Li Tiaoyuan's literary achievements in the dynasties
Li Tiaoyuan was obsessed with the business of visiting, compiling, engraving and collecting books all his life, and compiled and engraved a large number of books. The compilation of the literature collection of the dynasties is the main literature of the later generations to study the literature of the dynasties, and the style of compiling the literature of the dynasties in the Qing Dynasty was very prosperous, with official repairs such as "All Tang Poems" and "All Tang Literature", and private repairs such as "All Ancient Three Dynasties of the Qin and Han Dynasties and Six Dynasties". Inheriting this style of study, Li Tiaoyuan also compiled 100 volumes of "Poems of the Five Dynasties" by himself. Jiang Yin believes that the "Poems of the Five Dynasties" compiled by Li Tiaoyuan is the first complete compilation of dynastic poems compiled by an individual in existence, and should be fully affirmed.
Two
Li Tiaoyuan's research on epigraphy
Jinshi originated in the Song Dynasty. Ma Heng (1881-1955), a famous scholar of modern gold and stone studies, believed: "There was a Song Dynasty and there were scholars who specialized in this area, and Ouyang Xiu's "Collection of Ancient Records" was the beginning of a special book on gold and stone. Since then, Lu Dalin, Xue Shanggong, Huang Bosi, Zhao Mingcheng, and Hong Shishi have written their own works and become experts. Zheng Qiao's "Tongzhi" is a separate door with gold and stone, which is among the 20 strategies. Later, the discipline of gold and stone science became a specialized science, which was outstanding and independent, that is, the name of matter was the name of its discipline. ”①
In the Qing Dynasty, Jinshi was prosperous. According to the statistics of Rong Yuan's "Catalogue of Jinshi Books", there are only 67 kinds of existing works of gold and stone science from the Northern Song Dynasty to the first 700 years of Qianlong (including 22 kinds of works of the Song people), and there are 906 kinds in about 200 years after Qianlong, which shows the prosperity of its development. Li Tiaoyuan was in the era of Qianjia examination and study, and he was very attentive to the study of gold and stone, and wrote works in this regard, such as "Supplementing the Engraving of Jin Shi Cun", "Shu Tablet Supplement", "Essentials of Naturalism", "Jin Shi Pin", "Jin Shi Cun" and other works. The Song Dynasty scholar Wang Xiangzhi wrote the "Shu Tablet Record", and Li Tiaoyuan wrote the "Shu Tablet Supplement" 10 volumes on this basis. Zhan Hanglun made a summary and commentary on the works such as "Shu Tablet Supplement", "Jin Shi Pin" and "Jin Shi Cun" in "Li Tiaoyuan's Academic Genealogy". Shen Zhenhui examined the relationship between the "Supplement to the Shu Tablet" and the "Supplement to the Shu Tablet", analyzed the background of the compilation of the "Supplement to the Shu Tablet", and pointed out that this book "brings together almost all the information of the inscriptions in Shu before the Song Dynasty, and makes a comparative study of these materials.
Three
Li Tiaoyuan's research on Fang Zhi
Sichuan is the birthplace of local history in China. Scholars generally believe that the Huayang National Chronicles compiled by Chang Xuan, a native of Jiangyuan (now Chongzhou, Sichuan) in Shu County during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, is the earliest surviving local chronicles in the mainland. Since then, in the Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, the wind of Sichuan cultivation has been endless. Among them, in 320 years of the Two Song Dynasty, Sichuan (including present-day Chongqing) compiled a total of 194 local chronicles, although most of them are scattered, but it can be seen that the number of compilations is very huge. In the Qing Dynasty, the chronicles compiled by Sichuan were even more spectacular. According to statistics, there are as many as 460 kinds of Sichuan chronicles compiled in the Qing Dynasty. (1) The Sichuan Chronicles of the Qing Dynasty not only have a large number, but also have many fine products, and the local chronicles compiled by famous scholars emerge in endlessly, such as Duan Yu's "Fushun County Chronicles" of Qianlong, Zhang Gengmo's "Guangyuan County Chronicles" of Qianlong, and Peng Zunsi's "Danling County Chronicles" of Qianlong.
Based on the manuscript of his father Li Huanan's "Old News in Zili", Li Tiaoyuan edited the ten-volume "Luojiang County Chronicles" with an extremely rigorous attitude and innovative methods of cultivation. This is the first county chronicle in the history of Luojiang County, which preserves a large amount of information in the Luojiang area. Lin Ying et al. made a survey and description of the editions and collection locations of Li Tiaoyuan's "Luojiang County Chronicles" existing in Sichuan Province. In the local chronicles such as "Luojiang County Chronicles" and "Tongzhou Chronicles", Li Tiaoyuan's thoughts on local chronicles were formed and had their own characteristics. Xiong Qian and others from the Sichuan Provincial Local Chronicles Office analyzed Li Tiaoyuan's thoughts on Fang Zhi and believed that Li Tiaoyuan had a clear idea of cultivating aspirations, sufficient preparation for cultivating aspirations, a rigorous attitude towards cultivating aspirations, and innovative methods of cultivating aspirations. Zheng Theorem and Kuang Tianquan briefly introduced Li Tiaoyuan's compilation and revision of the "Luojiang County Chronicles". Kuang Tianquan and others believe that as a famous scholar of Fang Zhi in the Bashu region of the Qing Dynasty, Li Tiaoyuan has formed the Fang Zhi thought of daring to innovate, thinking about the past, considering the present, enlightening future generations, and paying attention to seeking truth from facts, which has a certain reference value for today's cultivation. Liu Pingzhong believes that the "Luojiang County Chronicles" is Li Tiaoyuan's "use of the documents in the Wanjuanlou, the collection of books, with reference to the gold stone inscriptions, to remove the false and retain the true, to check and fill in the gaps, and to imitate the style of "Old News under the Sun". The book is widely cited, the materials are all indicated, and the places of interest and historic sites contained in it are personally verified, and it is a local chronicle with high historical value." It can be said that Li Tiaoyuan provided a good model for the writing of Fang Zhi, and accumulated a large number of precious local historical materials for the study of Bashu culture, which also made practical contributions to the preservation, promotion and promotion of Bashu culture.
Four
Collect and sort out the literature of Bashu
Li Tiaoyuan's contribution to the collection is mainly reflected in his promotion of the collation and inheritance of ancient documents. Li Tiaoyuan paid attention to the local literature of Bashu, solicited writings, carefully collected, and then transcribed and carved them, and personally compiled and engraved "Hanhai" and "Continuation of Hanhai", making outstanding contributions to the revival of Bashu culture and the academic prosperity of the Qing Dynasty. A total of 163 kinds of books have been collected in "Hanhai", which has enabled many rare ancient books to be inherited. In view of the documentary value of Hanhai, Hongye Book Company and People's Publishing House photocopied and published it twice in 1968 and 2012 respectively, which played a role in preserving the literature.
In the article "Li Tiaoyuan and 'Han Hai'", Gao Yixu briefly introduced the content of each of the forty letters of "Han Hai" and the collection of the book in the Anxian County Library. Li Chunguang believes that Li Tiaoyuan's compilation and engraving of "Hanhai" has made great efforts to complete the collection of books and has many merits" and "has enabled many rare ancient books to be circulated, and has made contributions to the collection of writings of the Bashu people and to the development of Sichuan's local culture." Deng Changfeng investigated Qianlong's first engraved "Hanhai" at the Library of Congress. Liu Pingzhong carefully sorted out the version of "Hanhai", pointed out the situation of "one book and eight editions" of this book, and believed that "Hanhai" "has made up for the flow of the "Yongle Canon", and has contributed to the regret of the pearl of the "Siku Quanshu". Lai Anhai, Wang Yongbo, and others also studied the version of "Hanhai".
Li Tiaoyuan's writings are abundant, and it is difficult to sort them all out at one time, so it is necessary for the academic community to divide labor and cooperate to gradually sort out Li Tiaoyuan's collection of works. Wu Xigui wrote "Commentary on Li Tiaoyuan's Poems" (Chongqing Publishing House, 1989), which is a combination of annotations and commentaries. Luo Huanzhang and Yi Junmo respectively edited "Notes on the Poems of Li Tiaoyuan" (Bashu Publishing House, 1993) and "Selected Poems of Li Tiaoyuan Yongjing" (Sichuan People's Publishing House, 2001). Zhan Hanglun accumulated years of research and compiled the "Correction of Poetry in Yucun" (Bashu Publishing House, 2006). In order to promote the culture of village sages, the Luojiang County Party Committee and the Luojiang County People's Government (now the Luojiang District Party Committee and the District People's Government) decided to publish the "Complete Works of Li Tiaoyuan" one after another, and compiled the "Collection of Li Tiaoyuan's Works" (Bashu Publishing House, 2013).
Ancient China attached great importance to the enlightenment education of children, and many scholars devoted themselves to the compilation of Mengxue books with great enthusiasm, such as "Three Character Classic", "Hundred Family Names", "Thousand Character Text", "Sound and Rhythm Enlightenment", "Liweng Rhyme", etc. Li Tiaoyuan is no exception, he carefully compiled the "Selected Preschool Readers". The whole book has four contents: Xi to Song, Xi to Style, Cutting Rhyme Score and Skillful Matching. Xu Zi and Wang Xuemei edited the main content of the "Selected Preschool Readers", and believed that "many couplets composed of folding, tongue twisters and other methods in the book are novel and bizarre and cleverly conceived, which are not found in other such preschool books".
Li Tiaoyuan lived in the embryonic period of Sichuan cuisine, and his contribution to the formation and development of Sichuan cuisine lies in the compilation and publication of the food monograph "Xingyuan Lu" written by his father Li Huanan, and incorporating his own unique insights on Sichuan cuisine, Jiangnan cuisine and other food cultures, from which he extracted his own food thoughts. "Xingyuan Lu" is divided into two volumes, the whole book records a total of 39 kinds of cooking, 24 kinds of brewing, 24 kinds of pastries, 25 kinds of food processing, 4 kinds of beverages, 5 kinds of food preservation, its "many dietary methods recorded, many simple operations, strong practicability, easy for people to grasp", for the rise of Sichuan cuisine, the formation and development of Sichuan cuisine, has an important role in promoting. In the "Sichuan Cuisine Cooking Dictionary" edited by Li Xin, it is believed that "Xingyuan Lu" has laid the foundation for modern Sichuan cuisine to learn from the strengths of local cuisine. The dishes included in "Xingyuan Lu" are mainly Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisines, but there are also Sichuan cuisines and a few northern dishes and Western varieties. Strictly speaking, "Xingyuanlu" is "a recipe with the subjective preferences of Sichuan people, with Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine as the main volume", "introduces the excellent food and cooking technology of Sichuan to Sichuan people", and "plays a very positive role in enriching the food and cooking culture of Sichuan". Du Li believes that "Xingyuan Lu" records the dishes in the Jiangnan region and even overseas, which has opened the eyes of Sichuan people, and Li Tiaoyuan has become an important bridge to "connect and communicate food and cooking inside and outside Sichuan". In his long article "Bad Wu Cuisine and Good Shu Cuisine - Li Tiaoyuan and Sichuan Cuisine", Professor Jiang Yuxiang not only analyzed the formation of Sichuan cuisine and Li Tiaoyuan's dietary habits, but also discussed the background of the era and the culture, etiquette and filial piety embodied in the "Xingyuan Lu". Jiang Yuxiang also spent more than ten years to complete the book "Notes on the Awakening Garden" (Sichuan People's Publishing House, 2021), which has brought great convenience to today's people to use the "Awakening Garden".
Five
Research Prospects
The literature left by Li Tiaoyuan is rich and colorful, and there are many contents in it, which are worthy of full excavation and utilization by the academic community. In my opinion, we can start from the following two aspects in the future.
First, deepen the research on Li Tiaoyuan's Bashu literature. Li Tiaoyuan has made remarkable achievements in the study of Bashu literature, especially "Hanhai" and "Continuation of Hanhai". "Han Hai" and "Continuation of Han Hai" are important literature collections compiled and engraved by Li Tiaoyuan, and they are the most direct reflection of Li Tiaoyuan's literary thoughts. In the future, on the basis of reading through the entire Hanhai, the academic community should combine other relevant documents to deeply discuss the achievements and contributions of Li Tiaoyuan's philology, bibliography, editions, and proofreading. In addition, Li Tiaoyuan paid attention to the collection and printing of Bashu literature, and compiled and preserved a large number of Bashu documents. Combing and summarizing Li Tiaoyuan's research achievements in Bashu literature has special enlightening significance for the compilation of Bashu literature collections such as "Bashu Quanshu" and "Shu Zang" that are being compiled today.
Second, we should focus on the research and development of Li Tiaoyuan's historical and cultural heritage for economic and social services. Since Li Tiaoyuan was selected as the second batch of historical celebrities in Sichuan Province in June 2020, the various values contained in Li Tiaoyuan as a historical celebrity have been "rediscovered" by all walks of life in Sichuan Province, and have also attracted the attention of the national academic community. In the future, at an appropriate time, the Li Tiaoyuan Memorial Hall can be expanded, the Wanjuan Building can be restored, the Sichuan cuisine in the "Xingyuan Lu" can be restored, and the art and culture of Li Tiaoyuan's Sichuan opera can be promoted. These measures will certainly contribute wisdom and strength to the cultural construction of Sichuan today
Special Tips
Please indicate: "Source: Fang Zhi Sichuan"
Source: Sichuan Provincial Office of Local Chronicles
Text/Photo: Chen He (School of History, Culture and Tourism, Sichuan Normal University)