Hsün Yüeh (A.D. 148-209): The Life and Reflections of an Early Medieval Confucian 0521203945, 9780521203944

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CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN CHINESE HISTORY, LITERATURE AND INSTITUTIONS

General Editors PATRICK HANAN AND DENIS TWITCHETT

Hsün Y üeh ( a .d . 1 4 8 - 2 0 9 )

Other books in the series o l e n d u d b r id g e : The Hsi~yu chi: A Study of Antecedents to the

Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel China and the Overseas Chinese: Study of Peking’s Changing Policy, 194ÎM970

S te p h e n F it z g e r a ld :

A

C h r is t o p h e r H o w e: Wage P attons and Wage Policy in Modem

China, 1919-1972 r a y h u a n g : Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-

Century Ming China D ia n a l a r y : Region and Nation: The Kwangsi Clique in Chinese

Politics, 1925-1937 D a v id r . k n e c h t g e s : The Han Rhapsody: A Study of the Fu of Yang Hsiung (53 b.c.-a.d. 18)

Hsün Yüeh (a d . 148- 209) The Life and Reflections o f an Early M edieval Confucian by

CHI-YUN CHEN Associate Professor of History University o f California, Santa Barbara

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON

.

C A M B R ID G E N E W Y O RK .

M ELBO U RN E

Published by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press The Pitt Building, Tmmpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB 32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA 296 Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park, Melbourne 3206, Australia Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 74-79135

isbn: 0 521 20394 5 First published 1975 Printed in Great Britain at the University Printing House, Cambridge Euan Phillips, University Printer

To C H ’I E N M U and YANG LIEN -SH EN G

WITHDRAWN — IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

*What I have recounted here may be examined against real facts and verified; they rightly constitute counsels of lasting value which may be applied in myriad situations without becoming unreasonably inflexible.*

(Han-chi, hsü)

*One must comprehend the law of nature and examine the nature of men; peruse the canonical Classics and cross-examine them against the records of past and present events; take heed of the different conditions of men and penetrate into their subtlest details; avoid the extreme and grasp the mean; take reference from the Five Elements in their mutations; and place all these in different combinations and sequences; then one may dimly envisage an approximation of the ultimate truth.*

(Han-chi, Lun) *Words should be simple and straight; but why were the words of our Sage so subtle and intriguing? The answer is : Truth itself is subtle and intriguing; to communicate the truth, the Sage could not but use subtle and intriguing words.*

(Shen-chien) 4Symbols cannot perfectly represent the quintessence of things; words cannot fully convey the intent of what one wishes to say. Therefore, the Six Classics, though extant, are but the dregs left behind by the Sage.* 0HsQn

Ts'an)

Contents Preface

page ix

The Hsün family tree

xi

1 Introduction: The Confucian élite in an era of transition 2 Imperial decline and the new élite The literati in a conservative régime Persecution, agitation, and the Hsün family of Ying-ch’uan Confucians, Taoists, and the Yellow Turbans

3

The Han-Wei transition

10 10 19 30

40

Civil turmoil and ‘ restoration* Bureaucracy, political loyalty, and the new leaders The early Chien-an era, a.d. 196-210

4

1

Hsün Yüeh: Family background, official career, and political attitudes

40 47 58

66

The period of obscurity prior to a.d. 196 Service at the *restored ’ Han court, a.d.196-209

66 75

5 Hsün Yüeh’s works: The Han-chi (Chronicles of Han)

84

The official apologia The historian's discourses ( shih-lun) Cosmology, canonical authority, and history Historiography

6 Hsün Yüeh’s works: The Shen-chien (Extended Reflections) From history to reflective thinking Confucianism and Taoism in ch'ing-t'an Confucianism, Legalism, and Hsün Yüeh’scounsels

7

Conclusion: The world after Hsün Yüeh

84 93 105 112

127 127 136 148

162

Notes to the text

17®

Bibliography

214

Index

231

vii

Preface

In publishing this book, I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Ch’ien Mu (founder of the New Asia College and the New Asia Research Institute, Hongkong) and Professor Lien-sheng Yang (the H arvardYenching Professor of Chinese History, Harvard University). Professor Ch’ien introduced me to the study of China’s history some eighteen years ago; Professor Yang guided me through my doctoral programme at Harvard and has given me constant advice and assistance since. To both of them, this book is dedicated. This book is based partly on my doçtoral work at Harvard. I am grateful both to the Harvard-Yenching Institute and to the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for their Fellowships and travel grants in support of my study and research. I wish to express my thanks to Professor Robert Hightower who read and criticized my draft disser­ tation and to D r Glen Baxter for his good counsel and help. I am also much indebted to my friend Professor Edward Dreyer (now at the University of Miami) who read the entire draft of my dissertation and helped me in many ways to improve the English style. A great part of my original dissertation was written while teaching at the University of Malaya. I am thankful for the assistance of my former colleagues there and for the liberality of the University in grant­ ing me study leave. I am particularly grateful to Professor Wolfgang Franke of the University of Hamburg who was visiting professor in the University of Malaya during my stay there and who introduced me to German scholarship related to my field. Many studies and publications by Japanese scholars mentioned in the book were consulted during my stay at the Institute of Humanistic Studies of the Kyoto University. I wish to thank Professors Yoshikawa Kojiro, Miyazaki Ichisada, and especially Hiraoka Takeo for their hospitality and valuable assistance. The revision of my original dissertation into the present book was completed at Santa Barbara, California. I am greatly indebted to the University of California at Santa Barbara for Faculty Research Grants

ix

x

Preface

in 1968/70 and a Faculty Fellowship in the summer of 1969 which enabled me to broaden the scope of my study and to rewrite my disser­ tation into its present form. And I am most grateful for the support and encouragement which I have received from my colleagues in the Department of History at Santa Barbara, especially Professor Immanuel C. Y. Hsü. I wish to thank Mrs Ronald Hathaway for her comments and criticism on my English style. Finally I am grateful for the advice and scholariy criticism from Professor Denis Twitchett, Editor of the series of Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, literature and Institutions, who spent many hours reading and editing the typescript. I am truly thankful for the valuable assistance which I received in many ways from D r Michael Loewe, reader for the Press, M r Colin Jones, Editor of the Press in New York, and Mr Michael Black, Publisher and Editorial Director of the Press in England. But for their efforts, I cannot imagine when and how this book may be published. It is impossible to acknowledge all the help which I received from my family, my friends, and the academic world at large. They form the holistic world order in which I find my being. Of course, the responsibility for whatever shortcomings and mistakes remain rests solely on myself. Santa Barbara, California C. Y. C.

The Hsün Family Tree (Important members of the extended Hsün family o f Ying-ch'uan in eight generations) (Sui & )

(Chien ? £ )

(c. a.d. 121)

I

Shu m

“ I

“ Hi

I

Yü 3 . (d. 168)

T im m

Ch en &

Ch’ü m

I #

Y tteh të Yen (148-209) I

C h i fr

Yu ffc (157-214)

Shao $3

Hung KJ

Chih m

Shih M I

Yung f t

Han f t

I ft

Yü f t

Chün Ifë

Tan 0

K’ai fë I

K'uei m

Yü m

Lien £ Chi 0 ______________I

Sung i

Kiiei M

Chün f t !

Cho m (d. 312)

Sui £ I

K’ai f t (d. 323)

Jui f t

Hsü J? (c. 317)

Wang SE

Ta £

I

Hui I f Piao ifé (c. 223)

Hsien (321-58)

K’un m

I--------Hsin 1

Ching

Shen f t

ft

T’ao ft

Shih f t

Shuang ^ (128-90)

m

Wu g

Su f f

P’ei

yü (163-212)

I-----

Yün If

Wang tE

I ft (d. 264)

Fu 1

m

Ts’an &

P’an fë

Hsü i ) (d. 289)

Fan 0 (245-313)

I m

No/e. The above Hsün family tree is based on Wang Tsao’s ' Shih-shuo hsü-lu in Shih-shuo hsin-yii, with cross-references from the dynastic histories. C/. also Yano (i960), 14-18; Yoshinami (1956), 69.

I

Tsu & (258-322)

Hsienf t

1

Introduction: The Confucian élite in an era o f transition Hsün YUeh (a.d. 148-209), whose life and thought are the main concern of the present study, lived in a time of great political upheavals and pro­ found social change. The imperial rule of die Later Han had been in decline since the beginning of the second century. Its authority had suffered still further reverses in 166-84 when the palace eunuchs who had gained control of the court began to persecute their political opponents with ever increasing severity and aroused strong protests and resistance among the ruling classes. In 184 the authority of the court was dealt a fatal blow by the Yellow Turban rebellion. Although the rebellion was suppressed by the combined efforts of various loyalist groups the Han dynasty never recovered its former strength. In the ensuing years the power of the state fell into the hands of new leaders who had built up strong personal followings during these times of trouble: the frontier generals, the great civil officials with either fac­ tional or regional support, and those local magnates who now emerged to positions of influence on the national scene. The Later Han came to a virtual end as a dynasty in 189 when some of these new leaders sent their forces to attack the palace, massacred the eunuchs, and drove the emperor to flight. In 190 the imperial capital at Loyang was sacked and destroyed by the soldiers of the frontier general Tung Cho. The last Han ruler remained the captive for many years of Tung and his lieutenants.1 After some years of civil disturbance and near anarchy, in 196 a group of militarist leaders who declared themselves loyal to the Han régime restored the outward form and appearance of a court adminis­ tration. The group was led by Ts’ao Ts’ao (155-220), a strong man who was destined to shape China’s dynastic history in the following decades. Hsiin YUeh, who had up to this time been an obscure provincial figure, was invited to take a leading place at that titular court. He was at the time forty-eight years old. From then until his death thirteen years later, he was engaged on an arduous programme of scholarly work. Two important examples of his writings survive, the Hart-chi (Chronicles of

1

2

Introduction

Han) and the Shen-chien (Extended Reflections). These two works represent Hsün Yiieh’s effort to review the history of the Han dynasty and to reflect on the wider issues of his time; both works were com­ pleted in the crucial period of political upheaval and ideological controversy that accompanied the fall of the Han empire.2 During the subsequent Age of Disunity and in early T a n g times Hsün Yüeh enjoyed a great reputation as a model Confucian, as an outstanding political thinker, and as an exemplary historian. With the rise of Neo-Confucianism in Sung times, Hsün Yüeh’s fame underwent an eclipse. But his influence is still evident in the works of some Sung scholars, most notably in the Tzu-chih fung-chien by Ssu-ma Kuang (1019-86), perhaps the greatest Chinese history of all time. Today, Hsün Yüeh is mainly known in China as a pioneer among dynastic chroniclers, and the full significance of his thought has yet to be given adequate recognition.3 The present volume attempts to study in detaü Hsün Yüeh’s life and works. In addition to the analysis of his surviving works, the Han-chi and the Shen-chien, attention will be paid to those historical events that formed an important influence on him and upon the development of his thought, as well as to the influence which he exerted on the leading men of his own day and upon the events of subsequent ages. In this way it is hoped that we will attain a fuller and deeper appre­ ciation both of die intrinsic value of Yüeh’s thought and scholarship and of his individual contribution to China’s historiography. Like the other Confucians of his time, Hsün Yüeh and his writings have never been subjected to intensive study, although they have been known to Chinese scholars and not infrequently cited in modem Sino­ logical works.4 But in spite of this scholarly neglect, the Han-chi became so familiar to Chinese scholars that certain assumptions about k have come to be taken for granted. For instance, it has been repeatedly stated that Hsün Yüeh was given a subsidy by the imperial Han court and commissioned to compile a simpler and condensed version of the Han-shu (History of the Former Han Dynasty) of Pan Ku (died aj>. 92), and that the resulting work, the Han-chi, was a ’ subsidized dynastic chronicle* written by a professed loyalist The only value of this work to the modem scholar has been considered to be that it preserves an early (third century) and hence less corrupt ver­ sion of the Han-shu which may be used for the purpose of textual collation.9 This has done grave injustice to Hsün Yüeh’s complex thought and his sophisticated scholarship. For one thing, a careful scru­ tiny of the external and internal evidence concerning the Han-chi will show that the ' court subsidy ' was negligible. The record reveals only the extreme poverty of the Han titular régime and the hardships under

Introduction

3

which Hsiin Yiieh produced his historical masterpiece. The present version of the Han-chi presents a host of textual problems of its own and its present version is even more corrupt than is the present text of the Han-shuS In a similar way, Hsün Yiieh’s second major work, the Shen-chien, has been assumed to be a Han Confucian loyalist's dis­ course on politics, preserved in its entirety to the present day. This again is only a half-truth in so far as it relates either to Hsiin Yiieh's presumed loyal disposition or to the contents and the textual problems of the Shen-chien7 The prime difficulty of a detailed study of Hsiin Yiieh lies in the extreme paucity of information. The ‘ Biography of Hsiin Y iieh’ in the Hou-Han shu (History of the Later Han Dynasty) provides only an elliptical résumé of the subject’s official and literary career in fewer than three hundred characters, consisting mostly of an enumeration of Hsiin Yiieh’s offices and the titles of his writings. This résumé serves as an introductory note to the lengthy excerpts quoted from the Shenchien and the Han-chi, which constitute the bulk of the biography.* Even the statement in this biography about the circumstances in which Hsiin Yiieh produced his two major works appears to be somewhat misleading.9 For a more complete and accurate picture one has to grope one’s way through the labyrinth of the traditional Chinese historiography of the late Han period.10 Scattered in other sections of the Hou-Han shu, there are some detailed descriptions of the important events that occurred during the latter part of the Later Han rule, such as the movement of protest (ch'ing-i) led by the dissident literati; the imperial persecution of the dissident partisans (tang-ku)\ a series of purges, coups d'état and rebel­ lions, including the Yellow Turban uprising in a.d. 184; the destruction of the imperial capital by Tung Cho in 190; the restoration of the Han court at Hsii in 196; and the beginning of the ‘ Pure Conversation’ (