Sui Tang Jia Hua, Chao Ye Qian Zai

Author: (Tang) Cheng Yizhong
Publisher:
Publishing Time: 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 Bibliography of Arts and Literature. In the Direct Records of the Straight Collection by Chen Zhenzun of the Southern Song Dynasty, it was listed under the category of Novelists as Sui-Tang Jiahua, one volume, authored by Liu Su. The Bibliography 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 surviving Gu Family's Literary Collection edition, re-carved based on Song Dynasty versions, has characters like "zhen" () and "gou" () with strokes omitted, divided into three volumes: upper, middle, and lower. There is also the Jigutang Collection edition, which is nearly identical to the Gu Family edition and seems to originate from the same source. Additionally, there are editions like the Historical Novels of Each Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty People's Collection, which 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 Tang Dynasty Book of Liu under the entry "Liu Zixuan." The biography states that he wrote National Chronicle, which was recorded in the Bibliography of the New Book of Tang under the miscellaneous biography category (Yi Bu) as three volumes. The same work is also listed under the novelist category (Bing Bu) as three volumes, likely a shortened name for National Chronicle. This book was cited by Shao Bo in the Postscript of Shao Family's Observations from Henan, Volume 30, indicating that the name National Chronicle 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 did he quote the original text of the novels in his annotations 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, the entry "Yu Wenji cutting meat" in Volume 1 and the entry "Su Cheng's prescription" in Volume 2 were both cited by Tang Dynasty author Duan Chengshi in the Continuation of the Western Yang Miscellaneous Records.
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 edition. The Wenxuan records it as "co-authored with the National History." The entry "Xu Ling and the Marquis of Wei hiding their talents" in Volume 3 is listed as Jiahua in the Lei Shuo (Volume 54), as National Chronicle in the Yuhuan (Volume 599), as Biographies in the Lei Shuo (Volume 6) and the Zengzhuji (Volume 10), and as "co-authored with the National History" in the Shuo Fu (Volume 67). Such cases of overlapping and repeated entries are numerous and are detailed in the Annotations of this book.