Dubious Facts

Garret P. S. Olberding

Description

What were the intentions of early China's historians? Modern readers must contend with the tension between the narrators' moralizing commentary and their description of events. Although these historians had notions of evidence, it is not clear to what extent they valued what contemporary scholars would deem "hard" facts. Offering an innovative approach to premodern historical documents, Garret P. S. Olberding argues that the speeches of court advisors reveal subtle strategies of information management in the early monarchic context. Olberding focuses on those addresses concerning military campaigns where evidence would be important in guiding immediate social and political policy. His analysis reveals the sophisticated conventions that governed the imperial advisor's logic and suasion in critical state discussions, which were specifically intended to counter anticipated doubts. Dubious Facts illuminates both the decision-making processes that informed early Chinese military campaigns and the historical records that represent them.
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. The Subversive Power of the Historian

3. Politicized Truth and Doubt

4. Interactive Constraints at Court

5. Salient Formal Characteristics of the Addresses

6. Rhetoric in Opposition: Two Zhanguoce 戰國策 Addresses

7. Commitment to the Facts

8. Moral Norms as Facts: Arguing Before the Emperor

9. How Did Ministers Err?

10. A Diversity of Evidence

Appendices

A. Li Zuoche 李左車 and Chen Yu’s 陳餘 Exchange
B. Liu Jing’s 劉敬 Address to the High Emperor (Liu Bang 劉邦)
C. Zhufu Yan’s 主父偃 Address to Emperor Wu (Liu Che 劉徹)
D. Chao Cuo’s 晁錯 Address to Emperor Wen (Liu Heng 劉恆)
E. Zou Yang’s 鄒陽 Address to the King of Wu (Liu Pi 劉濞)
F. Liu An’s 劉安 Address to Emperor Wu (Liu Che 劉徹)
G. Zhao Chongguo’s 趙充國 Exchange with Emperor Xuan (Liu Bingyi 劉病已)
H. Wei Xiang’s 魏相Address to Emperor Xuan (Liu Bingyi 劉病已)
I. Hou Ying’s 侯應 Address to Emperor Yuan (Liu Shi 劉奭)
J. Yan You’s嚴尤 Address to Wang Mang 王莽

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Military history
• History of Asia
• Historiography
• China

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 04 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438443911
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

SUNY SERIES IN C HINESE P HILOSOPHY AND C ULTURE

Roger T. Ames, editor

Dubious Facts
The Evidence of Early Chinese Historiography
Garret P. S. Olberding

Published by STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS Albany
© 2012 State University of New York All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press www.sunypress.edu
Production, Diane Ganeles Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Olberding, Garret P. S.
Dubious facts : the evidence of early Chinese historiography / Garret P.S. Olberding.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4389-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. China—History—To 221 B.C.—Historiography. I. Title.
DS741.25.O43 2012
931'.01—dc23
2011047447
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Joe Gordon
who ever has faith
Acknowledgments
Many hands have stirred the pot of this work over the years it has been in the making. The members of my doctoral committee at the University of Chicago—Donald Harper, Edward Shaughnessy, and Danielle Allen—deserve profound thanks for their incisive remarks, without which the flaws of the work would have been that much greater. But there are others, earlier influences, particularly those at the University of Hawaii, especially Roger Ames and Ron Bontekoe, who helped shape and form the ideas and questions I eventually would bring into some focus here. Sincere gratitude also must be offered to a number of scholars who, in spite of their own onerous workloads, gave me rich, detailed comments on various portions, including Rachel Barney, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Rivi Handler-Spitz, Justin Tiwald, David Schaberg, Michael Loewe, and, most especially, Michael Nylan, who astounded me by reading through completely, and offering detailed comments for, the early stages of the manuscript. I further wish to acknowledge the debt I owe the scholars who attended the workshop I hosted at the University of Oklahoma in March of 2009, with the generous support of a grant from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. Whatever the strength of certain added portions of this manuscript is due to their critique. I am also very grateful for the steady assistance of Nancy Ellegate and Diane Ganeles of SUNY Press in bringing this book to print.
Lastly, there are those whose presence in my life and work go beyond any acknowledgment I could ever hope to compose. Amy Olberding, my wife and most supportive critic, has touched every aspect of my work, and, indeed, my life. I could not have written a word of this without her love and support. Adelein, our daughter, daily brings a joy I never thought I could have. But there is also one whose figure has accompanied me in spirit since I began my intellectual and personal journey into this at times very dark and forbidding forest. It is to him that this work is humbly dedicated.
An abbreviated earlier version of Chapter Eight appears in Peter Lorge, ed., Debating Warfare in Chinese History (Leiden: Brill, 2012).
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

THE EVIDENTIARY RELIABILITY OF MEMORIALIZED UTTERANCES AT COURT
Of the many problems surrounding the study of early Chinese historiography, one of the most troubling is the conspicuous tension between the narrator's moralizing commentary and the description of events. The earliest works of historiography—such as the Book of Documents ( Shangshu 尚書), the Spring and Autumn Annals ( Chunqiu 春秋), and the seminal commentary to the Annals, Zuozhuan 左傳—cannot be securely ascribed to a single author. 1 Perhaps because of this, scholars often attribute the tension to the complex accretion of commentarial intrusions and editorial changes. By contrast, with the Han histories, with the Records of the Grand Historian ( Shiji 史記) and the History of the Former Han ( Hanshu 漢書), there is the presumption of a dominant authorial voice, and with this authorial voice attends the assigning of a unitary authorial intent. Nevertheless, as in the earlier works, there often remain frustrating contradictions between moralizing commentaries and the specifics of the narrative. Consequently, as with the earlier works, the reader is often left to wonder what their authors' intentions actually were. Such concerns touch upon not only the ideological tensions between moral and narrative detail but also numerous tensions proceeding from various internal narrative contradictions, ironic voices, and complicated dramatic devices. Both the narrator and the historical characters at times appear to speak duplicitously, or at least disingenuously. Thus when interpreting the narratives, the discussions, the debates, and the references that comprise the material of the histories, we simply cannot take the speaker, whether narrator or character, at his word. This tendency toward vagueness and subtlety suffuses even some of the most outspokenly critical historical characters, particularly when their words are intended for submission to the court. Early Chinese historiography is a history frustratingly complicated by encoded speech.
Of course, encoded speech was vital to the monarchical circumstance. An anecdote about Emperor Yuan 元帝 misunderstanding the meaning of his own orders illustrates its ubiquity:
At this time the emperor had just come to the throne and he did not realize that the phrase “instruct the master of guests to summon them and turn them over to the commandant of justice” meant that they were to be taken to prison, and he therefore approved the recommendation. Later, when he asked to have Chou K'an and Liu Kengsheng called into his presence, he was told, “They are bound and in prison!” Astounded at this information, he said, “I thought they were only to be taken to the commandant of justice for questioning!” and he began to berate [the Chief of Palace Writers] Hung Kung and [his assistant] Shih Hsien. The two knocked their heads on the floor in apology, after which the emperor said, “See to it that they are released from prison and restored to their positions!” 時上初即位，不省「謁者 召致廷尉」為下獄也，可其奏．後上召堪﹑更生，曰繫獄．上大驚曰：「非但廷尉 問邪？」以責恭﹑顯，皆叩頭謝。上曰：「令出視事。」 2
To interpret court speech successfully, the reader, like the monarch, is obliged to pay attention to the rhetorical undertones. Naturally, there can be unjustified and excessive interpretation of insinuation (as all too many traditional commentators of the Annals have engaged in), but a heightened awareness of insinuation is nevertheless important, particularly in the interpretation of the highly rhetoricized ministerial addresses. That ministers must rely upon muted insinuations is clearly reflected in the numerous recommendations by early Chinese thinkers about the need for extreme delicacy in the choice of language. Regarding the selection of illustrative examples, the Xunzi 荀子 proclaims: “Channel [examples] as if with canal ditches, force them as if with the press-frame, and accommodate them to the circumstances so that your audience will get hold of the idea under discussion, yet will not be given offense or be insulted.” 3 In the selection of even small illustrative details, the minister must always be aware of the need to avoid risking offense. 4 When directed toward political ends, court address had to be formulated carefully, both to avoid arousing the ire of the monarch and to address certain doubts that the speaker (or writer) presumes the monarch may have.
On a general level, this study is driven by a concern with the factual reliability of memorialized utterance, but its central focus is actually somewhat narrower—to understand the logic of ministerial address through an analysis of its evidentiary conventions. The material for my investigations are the “memorials” concerning the waging of military campaigns (which, for my argumentative purposes, I hereafter label as “hortatory addresses” or “addresses,” for short). Save for a few recent studies, most notably by David Schaberg and Yuri Pines, these texts are treated as contributing very little to the study of early Chinese historiography. 5 Yet as reflections of the manner in which intellectual debates were actively drawn into contemporary court discussions, discussions of matters of immediate political and social import, these addresses are invaluable. They show how, or whether, various intellectual trends were imported into court debates, and thus can potentially reveal the extent to which these debates had direct and obvious influence on the handling of court affairs. They also can offer unique insight into the everyday develop