|
|
 |
The Yuanchao mingchen shilüe 元朝名臣事略 "Short biographies of eminent officials of the Yuan dynasty" is a collection of biographies of important ministers and state officials of the Yuan period 元 (1279-1368). This 15 juan "scrolls" long book had the original title Guochao mingchen shilüe 國朝名臣事略 "Short biographies of eminent officials of Our Dynasty" and was compiled by Su Tianjue 蘇天爵. It was completed in about 1329.
Of the 47 persons whose biographies are recorded, 12 are Mongols and Central Asians (semuren 色目人), the other 35 are northern Chinese (hanren 漢人). Su Tianjue imitated an earlier collection of biographies from the Southern Song period 南宋 (1127-1279), Du Dagui's 杜大珪 Mingchen beizhuan wanyan ji 名臣碑傳琬琰集, and therefore his main sources are tombstone inscriptions, eulogies, and private sources from the families of the persons to be described. Unlike Du Dagui, Su Tianjue did not simply quote these sources but he used them as sources to compile a virtual biography for each person. Each biography is furthermore headed by an introduction and the text is enrichted by an interpolation of commentaries. This was a thoroughly new type of biographical history Su Tianjue had invented. Su made use of more than 130 different sources, quotations of which have only survived in Su's book and are otherwise lost. Unfortunately the most widespread editions of the Yuanchao mingchen shilüe, like that in the collectaneum Siku quanshu 四庫全書, are full of printing errors. Some parts of the text have even been altered. The Zhonghua shuju press 中華書局 therefore published an edition in 1962 which is based on a print from 1335.
Source: Zhou Qingshu 周清澍 (1992). "Yuanchao mingchen shilüe 元朝名臣事略", in: Zhongguo da baike quanshu 中國大百科全書, Zhongguo lishi 中國歷史, vol. 3, pp. 1451-1452. Beijing/Shanghai: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe.
|
|
|
Chinese literature according to the four-category system
|
|
