Sui Tang Jia Hua Chao Ye Qian Zai Tang Song

Author: (Tang) Liu Su compiled, Cheng Yi Zhong edited
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not available
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 Annotations to the Direct Record of Books by Chen Zhensun of the Southern Song Dynasty, it is listed under the category of Novelists as Sui-Tang Jiahua, one volume, compiled by Liu Su. The Catalogue of Arts and Literature in the History of Song Dynasty also records Sui-Tang Jiahua, one volume, placed between Liu Su's biography and the category of Novelists. The existing Gu Family's Literary Collection edition, based on a Song Dynasty reprint, has omitted certain strokes in characters like "zhen" and "gou," and is divided into three volumes: upper, middle, and lower. There is also the Collection of Ancient Studies edition, which is almost identical to the Gu Family edition and appears to originate from the same source. Additionally, there are editions like Historical Novels of Each Dynasty and Tang Dynasty Sayings that are not divided into volumes and have fewer entries.
Liu Su, styled Dingqing, was the son of the historian Liu Zhiji and is mentioned in the Biography of Liu in the New Book of Tang. The Biography states that he had National Chronicles, which were recorded in the New Book of Tang's Catalogue of Arts and Literature under the category of Miscellaneous Biographies (Volume E). Later, it also records three volumes of Biographies under the category of Novelists (Volume B), which should be a shortened form of National Chronicles. This book is cited in Shao Bo's Record of Observations from Henan Shao Family, Volume 30, indicating that the term National Chronicles was already in use during the Northern Song Dynasty. Moreover, when Ma Guang compiled the Zizhi Tongjian, he adopted Liu Su's novels. Not only did he quote the original text of the novels in his research, but some historical facts about the Tang Dynasty in the Zizhi Tongjian were already present in the current edition of Sui-Tang Jiahua.
For example, in Volume 1, the entry "Yu Wenji cutting meat" and in Volume 2, the entry "Su Cheng's prescription" are both cited by Tang Dynasty author Duan Chengshi in the Continuation of the Western Yáng Zazu as Liu Su's Biographies. Similarly, in Volume 2, the entry "Fu Yi breaking Buddha's teeth" appears in both Jiahua and Biographies in the Collection of Stories, and in 197 entries of the Comprehensive Records, it is cited as Jointly Compiled History. In Volume 3, the entry "Xu Ling hiding his talent" is listed as Jiahua in 55 entries of the Collection of Stories, 599 entries of the Imperial Library as National Chronicles, and in 6 entries of the Collection of Stories, 10 entries of the Blue Pearl Collection, and 67 entries of the Shuo Fu as Biographies. Such cases of repeated entries are numerous and are detailed in the Annotations of this book.