(Portrait of Zhao Canpeng, Zhang Jinghua)
Professor Zhao Canpeng of the Institute of Ancient Books of Jinan University, graduated from the Institute of Chinese History of East China Normal University (1999) and the Department of Philosophy of Lingnan University in Hong Kong (2005), served as the director of the Research Department of the Historical Documentation Center of the Shanghai Library, the member of the Academic Committee of the Library Society of China, the member of the Ifla Family Genealogy and Local History Professional Executive Committee, mainly engaged in the research of the History of the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the History of the Song Dynasty, the History of Chinese Thought and Culture and the Ancient Philology. Han and Song Dynasties: A Collection of Treatises on the History of Chinese Academic Thought, Liang Shu Zhuyi Chuan Different Texts, and Miscellaneous Records of the Bitter Durian Flower Museum, Five Dynasties and Two Song Dynasties Supervision Ben Examination and other ancient books. As the person in charge of the revision of the revised "Book of Liang", on the occasion of the publication of the revised "Book of Liang", he introduced some of the compilation, proofreading and revision to the "Shanghai Review of Books".
The revision of the Book of Liang is very special, it was completed by Yao Cha and Yao Silian father and son through four dynasties (Liang, Chen, Sui, Tang), can you briefly introduce the revision process?
Zhao Canpeng: Yao Silian's Book of Liang and Book of Chen, similar to Sima Qian's History and Ban Gu's Book of Han, were compiled by father and son one after another, and are also good stories in the history of Chinese historiography. Yao Cha (533-606) began to participate in the revision of the history of the Liang Dynasty at the end of the Liang Dynasty, and from the perspective of our modern people, he was still a young man in his early twenties. In the last year of Emperor Xuanzong of Chen's reign, when Yao Cha was about fifty years old, he "knew about the history of Liang", and When Chen Hou was the lord, he "led the writings" and was responsible for compiling the history of Liang and Chen. After entering the Sui Dynasty, Yao Cha was ordered by Emperor Wen of Sui to compile the history of liang and chen, during which some volumes were presented. Before the two history books were finished, Yao Cha died, and on his deathbed, his son Si Lian continued to write his book. Yao Silian stated his father's last wish, and the Sui Emperor ordered him to continue to write the second history, but until the end of the Sui Dynasty, the work of continuing the history book was still not completed. In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Gaozu ordered Shu Xiao Yu and others to revise the history of the former dynasty, the history of Liang was responsible for Cui Shanwei and others, and Yao Silian participated in the revision of the history of Chen, but this revision of history was not successful, and it took several years to stop. In the second year of Emperor Taizong of Tang 's reign (628), Yao Silian was again instructed to write the History of Xiu Liang and Chen Ershi. In the first month of the tenth year of Zhenguan, Fang Xuanling, Wei Zheng, and Yao Silian wrote the history of the five dynasties of Zhou, Sui, Liang, Chen, and Qi, and entered the imperial court. At this time, Yao Silian was already very old (some scholars say that he was eighty years old), and he died in the second year after the "Book of Liang" and the "Book of Chen" were written. The revision of the Book of Liang by Yao Silian's father and son is generally believed to have begun in the last year of Chen Taijian, which lasted for more than fifty years. If you count from the time Yao Cha participated in the writing of the history of the state at the end of the Liang Dynasty, the general plan is more than eighty years. All in all, the process of writing the book is more tortuous.
The "Book of Liang" and the "Book of Chen" have been revised for such a long time, and the reasons for them are occasionally touched upon in the treatises of previous generations, and some of the views are very enlightening. For example, Fang Beichenshi, a professor in the History Department of Sichuan University, in his doctoral dissertation "Discussion on the Great Family of the Jiangdong Family in the Southern Dynasty of Wei and Jin", believes that this is the reason why the Yao father and son personally experienced the succession of the Four Dynasties of Liang, Chen, Sui and Tang (as well as the factor that the Yao family was divided into the Southern and Northern Dynasties), and that historical writing was taboo and was hindered by many aspects. That makes a lot of sense. In addition, after Yao Cha's death, Yao Silian's inability to concentrate on the revision of Liang and Chen Ershi may also be an important reason. Yao Silian participated in the revision of the "Ou Yu Tu zhi" during the Sui Dynasty, and during the Tang Zhenguan years, he wrote thirty volumes of the Chronicle of the History of the State, and also participated in the compilation of the book "Wen Si Bo Zhi". These works were carried out at the same time as the revision of Liang and Chen Ershi, and the hundreds of volumes of the "Ou Yu Tu Zhi" and the 1,200 volumes of the "Wen Si Bo Zhi" were all large books, and it was inevitable that a lot of time and energy would be spent.
In the short fifty-six years of the Liang Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Liang reigned alone for forty-eight years, as if one dynasty and one emperor had an impact on the style of the revision of the Book of Liang?
Zhao Canpeng: Actually, fifty-six years is not short. In the fifty-ninth year of the Southern Dynasty Song Dynasty, eight emperors were passed on; twenty-four years of Qi, seven emperors; fifty-six years of Liang, four emperors; thirty-three years of Chen, passed on five emperors. Liang's nianzuo was second only to the Song dynasty, and was much longer than the second generation of Qi and Chen. As you said, Emperor Wu of Liang reigned for forty-eight years, the longest reigning emperor of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. He is also prominent throughout ancient Chinese history, as one of the longest-reigning emperors. Ranked fourth alongside the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, after Kangxi, Qianlong and Emperor Wu of Han, and until the Ming Dynasty, it maintained a record of second place, second only to Emperor Wu of Han. However, this point does not seem to have a particularly obvious impact on the revision of the Book of Liang. At most, we say that the Book of Liang has six volumes, and the Book of Emperor Wu has three volumes, the upper, middle, and lower volumes, which are larger, and that's all.
Of course, in The mind of Emperor Wu of Liang, at the moment when the rebel general Hou Jing attacked jiankang City, he already had a premonition that the Xiao family was dying, "Self gain, self loss, and hate." (Vol. 29, "The Biography of King Lun of Shaoling"). Strictly speaking, this premonition does not correspond exactly to the evolution of history, after all, after Emperor Wu of Liang, there were three emperors. Emperor Wen of Liang was a puppet emperor under hou Jing's coercion, leaving it alone; Emperor Liang Yuan's pacification of Hou Jing's rebellion, judging from the concept of the people at that time, was almost a reconstruction of the country, and if his personality was not so strange, it would have been possible for Liang Zuo to continue as the lord of Zhongxing.
Yao Cha was once a soldier in Liang, and Yao Silian also wrote a biography of his father in the Book of Chen, and it was also a contemporary person who wrote contemporary history, how did this factor affect the revision of the Book of Liang?
Zhao Canpeng: This is very important. When writing the preface to the revision, Jing Shuhuishi especially reminded me to pay attention to this. Although the Book of Liang was written in the early Tang Dynasty, Yao Cha successively served as an official in the Liang and Chen dynasties, and entered the central field of political power, in addition to his own experience and knowledge and mastery of many first-hand information from relatives and friends, he also had the opportunity to contact the historical archives hidden by the imperial family, so the book's account of the system, administration and personnel of the Xiao Liang generation was quite accurate, and its historical value could not be underestimated.
Yao Silian wrote a good biography of his father in the "Book of Chen", which is longer and is a biography with a large number of words in the "Book of Chen". But this way is not very in line with the traditional practice of historians. For example, the "History of History" and the "Book of Han" ("Book of Song", "Book of Wei", and "Northern History") all have a preface at the end of the book, detailing the author's family lineage, Mr. Zu's Pingshi eunuch, academic origins, and writing examples. When Tang Zhenguan revised the history of the five dynasties of Zhou, Sui, Liang, Chen, and Qi during the tang dynasty, the Book of Liang and the Book of Chen already had relatively obvious characteristics of official revision history books, and I am afraid that it is impossible to follow the common practice of "History" and "Han". The "Biography of Yao Cha" was established in the "Book of Chen", which is a variation of the history book.
Tang Taizong personally wrote several historical treatises on the Book of Jin, and the history of the five dynasties of Liang, Chen, Qi, Zhou, and Sui also began to be revised at the same time under his orders.
Zhao Canpeng: This question is a bit novel, I may not answer it well, and I need to do some special research. Tang Taizong did not write a special text for the Book of Liang, and on the surface, the content of the Book of Liang was not directly related to Tang Taizong. The situation is somewhat similar, and after the six volumes of the Book of Liang, there is a commentary by the superintendent Wei Zheng summarizing the lessons of the rise and fall of the Liang Dynasty. This may reflect part of Tang Taizong's ideas.
Tang Taizong wrote four historical treatises for the Book of Jin, one of which is the Biography of Wang Yi. That was the reason why he greatly admired and even worshipped the "book saint" Wang Xizhi. Wang Zhi and Xiao Ziyun of the Liang Dynasty were both famous calligraphers, and Wang Zhi was known as the "Sage of Books" at that time, and Xiao Ziyun was famous overseas. But Tang Taizong must have felt that they could not be compared with Wang Xizhi, so he wrote a somewhat harsh sentence in the biography of Wang Xizhi: "Ziyun has recently appeared, and he is good at naming JiangBiao, but he only has to write a book, and has no husband's temperament." The lines are like spring worms, and the words are like autumn snakes. ...... Although the bald rabbits are rich, there is no one in the pile; the skin of the poor and the poor have no half of the bones. Eze spreads beauty, not its indiscriminate name. ”
There is a related academic point of view that deserves a little introduction. Mr. Zhao Yiwu, a scholar at the Institute of Literature of the Gansu Academy of Social Sciences, has written a book called "Yin And Near-Body Poetry". The book examines the lineage of the Chen Dynasty poet Yin Hao, and makes a meticulous study of the "Biography of Liang Shu Yin Zi Chun", pointing out that the reason for the existence of this biography may be related to Tang Taizong's concubine. This statement is for reference.
In the "Twenty-Four Histories", is there anything special about the Book of Liang?
Zhao Canpeng: I am speculating that without accurate investigation, the degree to which the "Twenty-Four Histories" have attracted the attention of readers, if ordered, the Book of Liang is probably in the lower position. The situation in the histories of the Southern and Northern Dynasties is more similar. There are many reasons for this. If we put it simply, in the historical concept of the ancients, the Period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties was not a prosperous era, and the relevant histories were not taken seriously. Until modern times, there are probably not a few people with such a concept.
However, a particular phenomenon can be seen from the perspective of the medium of knowledge and information dissemination. Looking at the development of modern and contemporary history, there are many famous scholars in the field of medieval history research (such as the names of Chen Yinke, Tang Changru, Zhou Zhouliang, Yan Gengwang, Tian Yuqing, etc., professional scholars needless to say, and they are also familiar to ordinary readers with historical hobbies), and the achievements of many young and middle-aged scholars in contemporary times are also very prominent, and there is a general and lasting radiation effect in the reading circle. Therefore, the history books of the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties have also been more concerned and welcomed by readers, which may be a new situation in the past thirty years.
The Book of Liang is small in length, but has some of its own unique strengths. In the history of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the quality of the revision of the Book of Liang is highly praised. Yao Cha was a well-educated scholar of the Book of Han, who had a profound understanding of historiography and was known for his literary talents; Yao Silian's family origins, the merits of his father and son, Liang and Chen Ershi were quite famous in the Tang Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty Siku Guanchen praised the Book of Liang as "holding on to the principle of multi-level and flat, ranking the whole order, and having the historical law passed down since the Han and Jin dynasties." Zhao Yi believes that the "Book of Liang" is concise and clear-cut, the narrative is concise and perfect, "the writing is self-hammered, and it is intended to chase banma far away" ("Twenty-two Historical Notes", volume 9), "enough to call it a good history" ("Yu Cong Kao", volume VII), which is a representative view of later generations. The narrative of the Book of Liang and the use of prose at the end of the biography have a unique expression in the atmosphere of the Six Dynasties advocating the company. Wu Rulun, a great scholar of modern Tongcheng literature, also has a high evaluation of the history of the Book of Liang, believing that "the Book of Liang seems to be better than the history of the Song and Qi, and the works written by Yao Cha are better than those of The Emperor" ("Tongcheng Mr. Wu's History Point Survey", vol. 3). Often praised by historians, such as the "Biography of Cao Jingzong" containing a large section of his complaints, the "Biography of Wei Rui" records the Battle of Hefei and the Battle of Shaoyang, the "Biography of Kang Xuan" records the work of Huaiyan, and the "Biography of Yang Kan" records the defense of Taicheng, the language is rich and lively, the details are vivid and picturesque, and it is a rare masterpiece in medieval history books. There are some wonderful passages in the Book of Liang that leave an indelible impression. Recently, Professor Wei Bin published an interesting article "Seeing Gao Wang" (Reading, No. 4, 2020), about the origin of writing, saying that it began with reading "Liang Shu Hou Jing Biography", Hou Jing saw that the general trend has gone a period of emotion ("with Gao Wang's kind of person"), if you read it, although the voice can not be reproduced, according to this is enough to think. These cannot be expanded, but can only be briefly talked about.
The collation of the Book of Liang in the last century was pointed out by Professor Lu Zhenhua of the History Department of Shandong University, how do you think of his contribution?
Zhao Canpeng: From the beginning of the revision work to the present, my view of the original school of the Book of Liang has not changed. It is impossible for the book to be free of errors, but in general, it is still a superior work in the collation of ancient books, and Mr. Lu Zhenhua (including Mr. Wang Zhongjie, who presided over the school of the Five Histories of the Southern Dynasty, mr. Song Yunbin and Mr. Zhao Shouyu, who were engaged in editing and sorting out), made great contributions. Without the achievements of the predecessors as a starting point, today's revision work would not have been able to be carried out smoothly. The so-called "blue wisp of the road" is the most difficult pioneering work.
Specifically, the origin school book extensively uses the Baiyuan Ben, the Nan and Beijian Ben, the Jiguge Ben, the Wuyingdian Ben and the Jinling Bookstore Ben, the "History of the South", the "Yuangui of the Book of The Book", the "Zizhi Tongjian" and other classics, with reference to Zhang Yuanji and Zhang Senkai's two kinds of "LiangShu Collation Survey", absorbing qian Daxin's "Twenty-two History Examination Differences" and other scholars' collation results since the Qing Dynasty, and have had many creative ideas in punctuation, segmentation, and correction errors, etc., and have been widely praised by the academic community in the past fifty years since its publication.
Ancient books are full of thorns, and there are many "places that cannot be found" (here is a metaphor for those whose meaning is doubtful and not easy to understand in ancient books, borrowed from the words of the modern Sichuan classicist Liao Ping). The average reader encounters this situation, unless it is a last resort, can take a detour, jump over, ignore and not read, but the pointer can not be so flexible. There are some places in the Book of Liang that are not easy to read, and Mr. Lu has made a more thorough treatment as much as possible. Professor Jiang Baochang wrote an article entitled "Learning after the Rise and Fall of the People, Disabled Zhi MiJian - Mr. Lu Zhenhua's Governance Methods and Academic Achievements" (Wenshizhe, No. 5, 2013), according to the collation records of the "Book of Liang" and "History of the South", discussing Mr. Lu's rigorous academic spirit, the discussion is a little too brief, which can be seen briefly.
Mr. Lu Zhenhua
In the past, when I was studying at the Ancient Books Institute of East China Normal University, I often heard Yan Zuozhi quote a passage from the preface to Mr. Yu Jiaxi's "Dialectics of the Four Libraries" as a proverb for scholars to humble themselves: "However, it is difficult for Ji Shizhi to be a "Summary", and It is also easy for Yu Zhi to be a "Dialectic", which is it? ...... Ji Shi could not ignore what he had not read, while Yu shi avoided it. For example, the shooting of the tree, the ji clan control string full, the birds in the clouds, the rest of the tree and then the ear. If you change places, Ji Shi will be better than "Dialectics", and Yu Zhi cannot be determined for the "Summary". Recently, I wrote the preface to the revision and read Mr. Yu's words, and I deeply felt it, which can be described as a saying that has a deep taste for the sweetness and bitterness of the study. Today's revision work supplements and improves the defects and deficiencies of the original schoolbook, as the saying goes, "after the refinement", this is an inevitable situation, and it should be so. But if we were to change places, Mr. Lu and other former sages were born in this world, and they would do the revision work better than us; and if we take the time machine to travel through the past and start from scratch to proofread the Book of Liang, it may be difficult and difficult to succeed. In the process of revision, when I was tired and lazy, I could not help but think of mr. Lu's long-term lying on the sickbed colonel's "Book of Liang" and "History of nan" in the 1970s due to a fall and disability (for details, see the interview with Mr. Lu by Guangming Daily on April 13, 1978, entitled "Illumination of the Green Mountains and Sunset"), which made me ashamed. The scholars of the previous generations are broad and profound in learning, have studied diligently all their lives, have a simple mind, are determined, and are indifferent to fame and fortune, and their realm is difficult for today's scholars to achieve.
What are the main aspects of this revision that you are responsible for, and can you give specific examples?
Zhao Canpeng: The Song Dynasty theorist Lu Xiangshan once said that "King Wen should not be praised lightly", which means that only by having a real understanding of the virtues of King Wen of Zhou can such praise be in place. Praise is so, not to mention criticism. This is an analogy. The focus of the revision work is that there are problems and deficiencies in the original schoolbook, and from a logical point of view, it should be entered and then exited, so as not to be arrogant. An important reason why the revision of the Book of Liang has been protracted is that it has basically "copied" the work done by Mr. Lu Zhenhua and others. The original version used, the history books of the participating schools, and the reference research papers were all reviewed and compared to the examination schools one by one, which was not enough to truly understand the original point school work.
The revision work we have done, in simple terms, is mainly reflected in three aspects:
The first is a change in the way collation is conducted. The origin schoolbook adopts the method of "not setting up a base book, choosing the good and following the good", and this revision is the proofreading of the base book. These two methods are very common in the collation of ancient books, but in general, in the case of the basic stereotyping of ancient book texts, it is more prudent to use base proofreading. The collation method of the "Twenty-Four Histories" of the origin school is not consistent, and in terms of the Five Histories of the Southern Dynasty, the Book of Southern Qi and the Book of Chen have a base, and the Book of Song, the Book of Liang, and the History of the South have no base, and the text is chosen for good.
It is said that in the last century, the school published the "Twenty-Four Histories", and there was an idea of launching a different version of the "popular version" and the "academic version". The "Twenty-Four Histories" of the school was originally intended to be a popular reading book, and it is planned to introduce a higher degree of academic books. However, as a result of practical operation, because the academic level of the "popular version" is very high, the plan to launch the "academic version" has not been implemented. For decades, the "Twenty-Four Histories" of the Dian schoolbook has been both a favorite reading for ordinary readers and a standard version used by scholars in academic research. When the point school book was first introduced, since there were considerations of popularization, there was a tendency to simplify the processing in collation, and there was also a consideration of introducing a "fixed version" in the text, which is the reason why more history books adopt the method of "not setting up a base and choosing the good and following the good" in the point school. Under this consideration, the scale of the original schoolbook to change the text is larger. In fact, the so-called "choosing the good and following" is a very subjective judgment, the "good" we understand is not necessarily the true meaning of the "good", it seems that the text is problematic, can not read the place, may be caused by posterity's lack of understanding of the language of the history books. Coupled with the limitations of lead type typesetting technology in the past, many ancient characters and variant characters have been changed to common characters. In this way, the rich information contained in the ancient books has disappeared due to simplification.
The revised version of the Book of Liang is a proofreading of the base, with the Baiquan ben as the base, and the base as the basis, adopting a more cautious attitude, and the scale of the word change is relatively small. Our starting point is to preserve as much of the early appearance of the ancient books as possible. This treatment is beneficial for academic research. Let me give you an example. Volume 29 "Biography of King Lun of Shaoling", "All by the feeding of the hanging" sentence. The glyph of the character "absolute" is more special, and the origin school copy is based on Zhang Yuanji's "Liangshu Collation Survey", quoting the "Book of Han" Yan Shigu notes, and going around in a big circle, thinking that it is a "absolute" false character. That word is actually no problem, and it is found in the fifth volume of the Song Ren Xia's "Ancient Text Four Rhymes", which is a variant of "absolute". The revised version preserves this glyph. Xia Chun's book is now very important to paleographers, and in recent years, two doctoral dissertations in China have been proofread, but neither has yet reached the fifth volume. In the future, when scholars make the five-volume proof, this glyph of the Book of Liang can provide a living written information (the leaf of this edition with the word "absolute" can be confirmed to be the original edition of the early Southern Song Dynasty).
The Baiquan ben photocopied the original edition of the Book of Liang in the early Southern Song Dynasty
The second is the literature of the participating schools. Compared with the origin schoolbook, the revised version has expanded in the breadth and depth of the participating editions. The earliest surviving version of the Book of Liang is the song large-character version (forty volumes) in the old collection of the Beiping Library, that is, the base copy of the Hundred Books, which is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. This fragment of the Song Dynasty is very precious, and we conducted a general school according to the microfilm collected by the "National Library" in Taipei, and Jing Shuhui went to the National Palace Museum in Taipei to borrow the original book for comparison and verification. This work is very meaningful, can make up for the lack of the original appearance of the ancient book due to the depiction of the correction, we found several obvious errors, the revised version was corrected according to the remnants of the Song Dynasty, thus solving some of the more important and difficult problems, all out of the school to explain.
In addition to the remnants of the Song Dynasty, the photocopy of the Hundred Dynasties Edition was also supplemented by the Three Dynasties Edition. At present, there are relatively complete surviving three dynastic versions of the Book of Liang, and there are about ten kinds (there are several other fragments). This revision uses six kinds, these three dynasties of the engraving form and brush printing situation have similarities and differences, put together to compare, for the Hundred Dynasties photocopy of the depiction of the modification, can make a relatively close judgment. In the supplementary part, we find that the Baiquan book has also been incorrectly corrected, so some substantial corrections have been made. The Remnant Song Ben and the Three Dynasties Ben were not intended by Lu Zhenhua and other gentlemen, so the Origin Schoolbook was subject to some inherent restrictions in terms of text proofreading.
In addition to the original Nanjian Ben, Jigu ge Ben, and Wu Yingdian Ben, we also refer to the Nan Jian Ben of the Qing Dynasty Li Ciming, the Ji Gu Ge Ben of the Qing Dynasty Ye Wan and other approved schools, the Wu Ying Dian Ben of the Fu Zengxiang School Zhang Yu Inscription, and the Japanese Reading Book of the Di Sheng Lao Sentence Inscribed according to the Nan Jian Ben. Some of these editions are of high academic value and are of great benefit to the revision work. These are all thanks to the progress of the times, and we feel fortunate that major libraries at home and abroad have published images of ancient books and rare books on the Internet.
In terms of heirloom texts and stone inscriptions, our scope of participation has also been expanded. The revision uses the Song Ben "Yuan Gui of the Book of The Capital", the "Seventeen Historical Strategies of the New Compilation of Meishan", several collections of stone carvings of the Han and Wei dynasties and the Jin Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the facsimile inscriptions of The Liang Yuan Emperor's "Gong Tu". Sometimes there are unexpected surprises, such as Mr. Chen Shangjun and Professor Tang Wen's in-depth study of Yan Shu's "Class Essentials", which has a quotation from the Book of Liang in this Northern Song Dynasty, one of which is particularly useful, and we have added a direct basis for the change of words for the origin schoolbook. Several large databases of ancient books and documents are often used in revision work, solving some problems that are difficult to deal with under normal circumstances. These are all conditions that the old gentlemen could not have when they did some school work in the past, so I will not say more.
Third, there is the revision of errors. Under the premise of fully respecting the achievements of the school at the point of origin, we have corrected the errors in the school of origin according to the general rules and working procedures of the revision work, unified the system, and made appropriate revisions and improvements. In the nearly fifty years since the publication of the "Book of Liang" point proofreading, the academic community has published a number of treatises to correct the errors in its Chinese and punctuation, and we have extensively collected and absorbed the results of these collation surveys.
In the era when the original point school work was carried out, the academic research of reading and writing was manual operation, using paper and pencil as the carrier, which was very different from today's highly developed computer technology and the leaps and bounds of research tools and means. With the progress of the revision of the Book of Liang, I have a more concrete understanding of the hardships of the work of the origin school, and the contributions made by the old gentlemen are admirable. I would like to pay deep tribute to Mr. Lo Chun-wah and other former sages who have entered history.