Sui Tang Jiahua Chao Ye Qian Zai

Author: (Tang) Liu Su compiled / Cheng Yi Zhong edited
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Liu Su's Sui-Tang Jiahua is not recorded in the Old Book of Tang or the New Book of Tang's Catalogue of Classics. In the Solution to the Catalogue of Direct Records by Chen Zhenzun of the Southern Song Dynasty, it was listed under the category of Novelists as Sui-Tang Jiahua, compiled by Liu Su. The Art and Literature Catalogue of the Song History also recorded Sui-Tang Jiahua, placed between Liu Su's biography and the category of Novelists. The surviving Wen Fang Novel Collection by Gu family, re-carved based on Song edition, omits certain strokes in characters like "zhen" and "gou," and is divided into three volumes: upper, middle, and lower. There is also the Qigutang Collection, which is nearly identical to the Gu family edition and appears to originate from the same source. Additionally, there are editions like the Historical Novels of Each Dynasty and the Tang People's Collection, which are unvolumed and contain fewer entries.
Liu Su, styled Dingqing, was the son of the historian Liu Zhiji and is mentioned in the Biographies of Liu in the New Book of Tang. The biography states that he compiled National Chronicles of Our Dynasty, which was recorded in the Miscellaneous Biographies category of the New Book of Tang's Catalogue of Classics as three volumes. The Biographies category in the Art and Literature Catalogue also recorded three volumes of National Chronicles of Our Dynasty, likely a shortened name for the same work. This book was cited by Shao Bo in the Postscript to the Observations of the Shao Family of Henan, Volume 30, indicating that the name National Chronicles of Our Dynasty was already in use during the Northern Song Dynasty. Furthermore, when Ma Guang compiled the Zizhi Tongjian, he adopted Liu Su's novels, not only quoting the original text of the novels in his annotations but also including some Tang Dynasty historical facts in the main text of the Tongjian that were already present in the current edition of Sui-Tang Jiahua. For example, the entry "Yu Wenji cutting meat" in Volume 1 and the entry "Su Cheng prescribing medicine" in Volume 2 were both cited by Tang Dynasty author Duan Chengshi in the Continuation of the Western Yang Zazu. Another example is the entry "Fu Yi breaking Buddha's teeth" in Volume 2, which appears in both Jiahua and Biographies in the Lei Shuo collection, and is also cited as "Joint Compilation of National History" in Gujin Tuji (Volume 197).
The entry "Xu Ling and Ma Wei Gong hiding their talents" in Volume 3 is listed as Jiahua in Lei Shuo (Volume 54), as National Chronicles of Our Dynasty in Yiwen Leimu (Volume 599), as Biographies in Lei Shuo (Volume 6) and Guanzhuji (Volume 10), and as "Joint Compilation of National History" in Shuo Fu (Volume 67). Such cases of overlapping citations are numerous and are detailed in the Annotations of this book.