ChinaKnowledge.de -
An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History and Literature

Pingyaoji 平猺記

May 24, 2019 © Ulrich Theobald

Pingyaoji 平猺記 "The pacification of the wild tribes" is a history book written by the Yuan-period 元 (1279-1368) official Yu Ji 虞集, courtesy name Bosheng 伯生, style Daoyuan 道園, from Chongren 崇仁, who was auxiliary academician (zhixueshi 直學士) in the Hanlin Academy 翰林院 and Director of the Directorate of Education (guozi jijiu 國子祭酒).

In 1334, Yao tribes 猺 (today written 瑤) in the prefectures of Hezhou 賀州 and Fuzhou 富州, Guangxi, rebelled against the Yuan government. Two years later, the pacification commissioner (xuanweishi 宣尉使) of Guangxi, Zhang Boyan 章伯顏, was ordered to pacify the region. In his afterword (ba 跋), Yu Ji author explains that he did not record the names of officers in order to attribute the merit of victory to the dynasty instead of her official-servants. Moreover, such details would disturb the neutral stance of a historian.

During the Qing period 清 (1644-1911), it was difficult to reconstruct the names of actors based on history books and laudatory tomb inscriptions. For this reason, the book was deemed as not valuable enough to become part of the Siku quanshu 四庫全書 corpus.

Source:
Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要, 52.