The one text in the many: separate and composite readings of an Early Chinese historical manuscript
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Bulletin of SOAS, 82, 3 (2019), 473–492. © SOAS University of London, 2019.
doi:10.1017/S0041977X19000673
The one text in the many: separate and composite
readings of an Early Chinese historical
manuscript
Rens Krijgsman*
Wuhan University
krijgsman.rens@gmail.com
Paul Nicholas Vogt
Indiana University Bloomington
pnvogt@indiana.edu
Abstract
The manuscript carrying the title Zhuangwang ji Cheng 莊王既成, from
the Shanghai Museum corpus of bamboo slips, bears two related anecdotes
concerning the early Chinese monarch King Zhuang of Chu. In this article,
we translate both stories and offer interpretations of them both as individ-
ual texts and as a composite narrative, situating both readings in a context
of intertextual references based on shared cultural memory. Approaching
the anecdotes together, we argue, generates an additional layer of meaning,
yielding both a deep sense of dramatic irony and a critique of the value of
foreknowledge – and, by extension, of the explanatory value of historio-
graphy. In detailing how this layer of meaning is generated, we explore
the range of reading experiences and approaches to understanding the
past enabled by combining separate but related textual units, a prevalent
mode of composition and consumption in the manuscript culture of
Warring States China.
Keywords: Anecdotes, Multi-text manuscript, Intertextuality,
Foreknowledge, Zhuangwang ji Cheng, Composite text
* In the writing of this article we have received generous support from The Center of
Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts, School of History, Wuhan University; The College
Arts and Humanities Institute, Indiana University; The New Frontiers in the Arts and
Humanities Program, Indiana University; The Hamilton Lugar School of Global and
International Studies, Indiana University; the junior project “Studies in manuscript cul-
tures: excavated materials from Chu” of the Wuhan University Independent Research
Fund (Humanities and Social Sciences), no. 413000025, supported by “the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities”; and the start-up project
“Manuscript culture studies of the Chu bamboo manuscripts” supported by the Wuhan
University Talent Program: ‘18 Talent team development start-up fund, no.
413100017. We would like to thank professors Chen Wei 陳偉 and Zhong Shulin 鐘
書林 for hosting venues for presenting our research, and the participants and two
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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The Shanghai Museum manuscript carrying the title Zhuangwang ji Cheng 莊王
既成 (∼300 BCE) presents the modern reader with a puzzle. It bears two clearly
differentiated anecdotes, the first a dialogue between King Zhuang of Chu
(楚莊王 r. 613–591) and the Deputy of Shen (沈尹), the second relating an
encounter between the Duke of Chen (陳公) and King Ling of Chu (楚靈王
r. 540–529).1 Each anecdote opens with a relatively standard framing formula
and closes with a punctuation mark and blank space.2 Based on both content
and formal criteria, it is therefore clear that each anecdote could stand on its
own, and this has indeed been the usual approach to this and related manuscripts
in prior scholarship.3 Nonetheless, the manuscript has only one title, and since
other manuscripts use similar physical characteristics to divide a single text into
multiple sections, the independence of its textual units seems less than clear-cut.
While it is unclear whether differences in the conception of the material as sep-
arate units versus an integrated whole had particular significance to a Warring
1 The manuscript as a whole is titled by the editors as Zhuangwang ji Cheng – Shengong
Chen Lingwang 莊王既成·紳（申）公臣靈王, see Shanghai Bowuguan Cang
Chuzhushu 6 上海博物館藏楚竹書（6） , ed. Ma Chengyuan 馬承源 (Shanghai:
Shanghai Guji, 2007) 61–74 (images), 237–52 (transcription). As noted by Chen Wei
陳偉, “Shangbo Liu Tiaoji” 上博六條記, Jianbo Wang 簡帛網 2007.07.09, http://
www.bsm.org.cn/show_article.php?id=597, the title of the second anecdote should
read chen 陳 for shen 紳, and Chengong 陳公 refers to Chuanfeng Xu 穿封戌. The
translation “Deputy” for yin here follows Stephen Durrant, Li Wai-Yee, and David
Schaberg (tr.), Zuo Tradition [Zuozhuan 左傳]: Commentary on the ‘Spring and
Autumn Annals,’ 3 vols. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016), e.g., 646–
647. In this article we refer to the manuscript as a whole by the title given on the manu-
script, i.e. Zhuangwang ji Cheng.
2 For scholarship on early anecdotes see especially David Schaberg, “Chinese history and
philosophy”, in The Oxford History of Historical Writing, vol. I: Beginnings to AD 600,
ed. Andrew Feldherr and Grant Hardy (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2011), 394–
414, and the studies in Paul van Els and Sarah Queen (eds), Between History and
Philosophy: Anecdotes in Early China (New York: State University of New York
Press, 2017) and Jack Chen and David Schaberg (eds), Idle Talk: Gossip and
Anecdote in Early China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013). Reign dates
in this article follow Du Jianmin 杜建民, Zhongguo lidai diwang shixi nianbiao 中國
歷代帝王世系年表 (Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 1995).
3 Volume 4 of the Shanghai Museum manuscripts features two anecdotes on King Zhao 昭
of Chu (r. 515–489 BCE), *Zhaowang huishi – Zhaowang yu Gong zhi Zhui 昭王毀室 ·
昭王與龔之脽 on a single manuscript, and volume 6 contains yet two more anecdotes on
King Ping 平 of Chu (r. 528–516 BCE), *Pingwang wen Zhengshou 平王問鄭夀,
*Pingwang yu Wangzi Mu 平王與王子木, also on a single manuscript. Please note
here that titles marked with an asterisk were given by the editors of the manuscript.
We are currently preparing a study on these materials as a set. Fukuda Tetuyuki 福田
哲之, “Biebi he pianti – Shangbo liu suo shou Chuwang gushi si zhang de biancheng”
別筆和篇題—上博（六）所收楚王故事四章的編成, Jianbo Wang 簡帛網
2008.11.15, http://www.bsm.org.cn/show_article.php?id=896, is one of the few authors
to discuss the phenomenon explicitly and calls them, perhaps deliberately vaguely,
“a text group in two sections” (二章一組文獻 ),which can be taken to mean a multi-text
manuscript or a composite text. All other discussions we have seen assume that the
manuscripts contain two distinct texts.
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States audience,4 to approach the Zhuangwang ji Cheng as a multi-text manuscript
versus a single text composed of different sections reflects a methodological prob-
lem in the study of early texts. Simply put, the question at stake is whether to read
the two anecdotes as separate from each other by default, or whether their prox-
imity and other physical connections should be assumed to reflect the production
of an additional, combined layer of meaning in the minds of those who composed,
produced, or read the manuscript in its original context.
In this article we approach this problem from the angle of reception: we read
the anecdotes both as individual texts and in conjunction with each other, to
explore the different layers of meaning such readings enable. The texts’ use
of cryptic language and ambiguous treatment of well-known intertextual tropes,
we find, provides for a powerful “what if?” reading experience, inviting the
reader to decode the deeper significance of the individual anecdotes.
Structuring the anticipation generated by these motifs within a clever chrono-
logical frame, the anecdotes as composite text guide the reader between a
mode of engagement with the past based on the immediate experiences of its
denizens, and one glimpsed through the judgemental lens of hindsight.5 Yet a
combined reading of the texts, we argue, also calls into question the value of
foreknowledge and, by extension, prophecy in determining how to act; and
since foreknowledge as a device assumes a knowledge of history, the shared
framing therefore paradoxically at once introduces and invites the reader critic-
ally to appraise the explanatory value of historiography viewed from the longue
durée. This multivalent perspective on history works because, not in spite, of the
composite nature of the manuscript, in which discrete, self-contained narrative
units combine to create a narrative superstructure with its own causal logic.
The case study of this manuscript thus epitomizes how the manuscript culture
of Warring States China, in which recombination and modularity were common,
shaped text producers’ and recipients’ approaches to the basic historiographical
problem of how narrative relates to the experience of the past.
The structure of the manuscript: unit, set, or unrelated parts?
The manuscript comprises nine slips and carries the title Zhuangwang ji Cheng on
the middle of the back of slip 1, written, according to Li Songru, in a different hand
or a specific title style not matched elsewhere in the corpus.6 The whole length of the
4 Note for example the care with which similar distinctions were made in the Qin bureau-
cracy for reasons of legibility, economy and controlling the spread of documents. See
Thies Staack, “Single- and multi-piece manuscripts in early Imperial China: on the back-
ground and significance of a terminological distinction”, Early China 41, 2018, 1–51.
Following this line of argument, it could therefore quite simply be reasons of economy
that prompted the writing out of two short texts on a single roll.
5 On the continuum between these two modes of engaging the past, see Jonas Grethlein,
Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography: “Futures Past” from Herodotus to
Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), esp. 1–19; David Carr,
Experience and History: Phenomenological Perspectives on the Historical World
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 55–64.
6 Li Songru 李松儒, Zhanguo Jianbo Ziji Yanjiu – yi Shangbojian wei Zhongxin 戰國簡
帛字跡研究—以上博簡為中心 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2015), 283.
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slips bears writing,7 and on the fourth slip, a hook-shaped ink mark followed by a
blank space about equal in height to one graph divides the manuscript into two sec-
tions. The text preceding this point relates an anecdote beginning with the phrase
Zhuangwang ji cheng (“Once King Zhuang had completed. . .”), and after the
break comes the anecdote referred to as “Chengong chen Lingwang” (“The Duke
of Chen served as minister to King Ling”) based on its content. Both texts are com-
plete, and a hook mark closes the second text as well. The remaining space on the
final slip after the hook mark is left blank. As noticed by Gao Youren, the recto
side of slip 9, just above the top binding string notch, features an imprint left by
the portion of the binding string that was knotted when the slips were tied together
in a bundle. It is therefore unlikely that the texts were bound together with other
materials into a single manuscript.8
The material under discussion here has been linked, on the basis of physical
similarity and content, with other materials relating stories on Chu kings.9 In vol-
ume 4 of the Shanghai manuscripts, two texts, entitled *Zhaowang Hui Shi –
Zhaowang yu Gong zhi Zhui 昭王毀室·昭王與龔之 ? (“King Zhao
demolishes the hall – King Zhao and Gong zhi Zhui”) by the editors, were writ-
ten by one hand on the same manuscript carrier.10 Likewise, reorganization of
the slips based on handwriting and physical characteristics has shown that
two stories in volume 6, *Pingwang Wen Zhengshou 平王問鄭夀 and
Pingwang yu Wangzi Mu 平王與王子木, share a single manuscript roll.11
This manuscript was written by two different scribes, one of whom also pro-
duced Zhuangwang ji Cheng.12 All these materials relate stories of former
7 The slips measure 33.1 to 33.9 cm long, 0.6 cm wide, and 0.12 cm thick and have
straight-cut ends. They were originally bound together horizontally with two strings,
spaced at intervals of 8.9–9.5|15|9.2–9.5 cm respectively.
8 Gao Youren (Kao You-ren) 高佑仁, “Shanghai Chujian Zhuang, Ling, Ping San Wang
Yanjiu” 上博楚簡莊、靈、平三王研究 (PhD Thesis, National Cheng Kung
University, 2011), 351–2.
9 Including Kings Zhuang 莊 (r. 613–591 BCE, Zhuangwang ji Cheng, *Zhengzi Jia Sang
鄭子家喪), Ling 靈 (r. 540–529, *Chengong Chen Lingwang, *Lingwang Sui Shen 靈王
遂申), Ping 平 (r. 528–516, *Pingwang Wen Zhengshou, *Pingwang yu Wangzi Mu,
*Chengong Zhi Bing 陳公治兵), Zhao 昭 (r. 515–489, *Zhaowang Hui Shi –
Zhaowang yu Gong zhi Zhui, *Jun Ren zhe he bi An zai 君人者何必安哉, *Wang Ju
王居), Hui 惠 (r. 488–432, *Ming 命, *Wang Ju), Jian 簡 (r. 431–408, *Jianda Wang
Bo Han 簡大王泊旱), see Gao Youren, “Shanghai Chujian San Wang Yanjiu”, 9 for
a tabulation.
10 Note also possible similarities either in content and form or in terms of physical charac-
teristics that have been noted for the *Neili 內禮 and *Xizhe Junlao 昔者君老, See Li
Songru, Zhanguo Jianbo Ziji Yanjiu, 292–9, in particular 297–9. She suggests that the
script style (書體) and the physical characteristics of the manuscripts are very close,
to form something of a house style. See also Gao Youren, “Shanghai Chujian San
Wang Yanjiu”, 43–4.
11 For an overview see Li Songru, Zhanguo Jianbo Ziji Yanjiu, 382–8.
12 For an extensive discussion of these latter manuscripts and their reorganization and hand-
writing, see Li Songru, Zhanguo Jianbo Ziji Yanjiu, 379–90, and Gao Youren,
“Shanghai Chujian San Wang Yanjiu”, 28–44. In short, one hand wrote Zhuangwang
ji Cheng and *Pingwang Wen Zhengshou; the latter manuscript roll continues with
*Pingwang yu Wangzi Mu, written in a different hand; and a third hand wrote *Wang
Ju and *Ming, likely appearing together on a separate roll with similar physical charac-
teristics to the roll with the King Ping stories.
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Chu kings, opening up the possibility that they were conceived of as a set, and
some suggest that they might have been used to instruct Chu princes.13
We have here, then, a situation where multiple scribes copied texts concern-
ing Chu kings into sets of manuscripts, frequently writing two short texts on the
same carrier. The similarities in both content and production characteristics (slip
lengths, endings, notches, and bindings) across sets,14 in addition to closeness in
script styles across different hands, suggest that most of these materials were
produced at roughly the same time and possibly in the same workshop. As
early as 2004, Li Ling already arranged this mass of historical manuscripts
into two large groups, later shown to have close relations.15 Despite the fact
that these materials lack any archaeological context, then, there are solid reasons
to think that early readers might have associated them with one another. Reading
them together may thus reveal potential layers of meaning, genre affiliation, and
common storytelling characteristics that would not be evident from reading the
individual pieces in isolation.
Warring States narrative and philosophical manuscripts include several exam-
ples of similar clusters of texts related to each other in terms of both content and
physical form, and the relationship between these forms of similarity has spurred
some prior discussion. Some modern readers have, for example, sought topical
and philosophical coherence among the *Chengzhi Wenzhi 成之聞之, *Zun De
Yi 尊德義, *Xing zi Ming Chu 性自命出 and *Liu De 六德 from Guodian, trig-
gered in part by the physical similarity of the manuscripts and in part by the mis-
understanding that these manuscripts belonged to a tutor of the Chu crown
prince.16 Likewise, Li Ling has suggested that the Shanghai Museum
*Lubang Da Han 魯邦大旱, Zigao 子羔, and the *Kongzi Shilun 孔子詩論
possibly form one manuscript, albeit without suggesting relations on the textual
level.17
13 Kunihiro Yuasa 湯淺邦弘, “Taizi de ‘Zhi’ – Shangbo Chujian Pingwang yu Wangzi Mu”
太子的“知”—上博楚 簡平王與王子木, Bulletin of Chinese Studies 中國研究集刊 45,
2007, 57–65. Trans. in Kunihiro Yuasa 湯淺邦弘, Bai Yutian 白雨田, Zhujian Xue:
Zhongguo Gudai Sixiang Tanjiu 竹簡學:中國古代思想探究 (Shanghai: Dongfang chu-
banshe, 2017), 2.3.
14 For example, the scribe responsible for the long-slipped manuscript *Zhengzi Jia Sang B
was also responsible for the shorter-slipped set including Zhuangwang ji Cheng. Similar
crossovers occur throughout the set.
15 Li Ling 李零, Jianbo Gushu yu Xueshu Yuanliu 簡帛古書與學術源流 (Beijing: Sanlian
shushe, 2004), 274.
16 For a rearrangement of these materials according to the physical characteristics of the
manuscript, see Chen Wei 陳偉, Guodian Zhushu Bieshi 郭店竹書別釋 (Wuhan:
Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2003), 83–207. For an early discussion, see Sarah Allan and
Crispin Williams (eds), The Guodian Laozi: Proceedings of the International
Conference, Dartmouth College, May 1998 (Berkeley: The Society for the Study of
Early China, 2000), 123–5. For an understanding of the materials as reflecting the
ideas of Zisi 子思, see Liang Tao 梁濤, Guodian Zhujian yu Simeng Xuepai 郭店竹
簡與思孟學派 (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2008) and the critical
discussion of such views in Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Material Virtue: Ethics and the
Body in Early China (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 86–103.
17 Li Ling 李零, Shangbo Chujian San Pian Jiaodu Ji 上博楚簡三篇校讀記 (Beijing:
Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2007), 5–9.
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These discussions share a focus on the physical features of manuscripts as
determining affiliation between texts, as well as an assumption that texts were
brought together (by a scribe, author, or compiler) on purpose in order to present
some kind of intellectual programme or set of texts for a particular school of
thought. Richter has rightfully questioned this approach and its underlying
assumptions,18 and it seems clear that any perception of possible affiliation
among early materials would ultimately reside in the reader, rather than deriving
simply from their sharing of a common carrier and, by implication, a common
compiler, author, or scribe. Nevertheless, when reconstructing manuscripts that
lack archaeological context, modern scholars have to rely on exactly such com-
binations of material and textual characteristics when proposing divisions of the
text into individual units.19 How, then, may we establish textual identity within
or across a manuscript such as Zhuangwang ji Cheng based on these limited cri-
teria? Two common approaches are viewing the material as either a composite
text or a multi-text manuscript.
As Boltz and others have shown, much of early Chinese text formation is
characterized by combining existing textual material into new compositions.20
Wise sayings, lines of poetry, and anecdotes were part and parcel of the cultural
memory of the Warring States; this body of material was adapted, juxtaposed,
and re-arranged to form new texts. Similarly, arranging multiple anecdotes
into compositions that gained in meaning across and beyond the individual
units is a mode of composition increasingly common from the late Warring
States period onwards. Manuscripts such as the Shanghai Museum Rongcheng
shi 容成氏 and *Juzhi Wang Tianxia 舉治王天下, or the Qinghua University
*Xinian 繫年, among others, combine historical narratives on former rulers
and content dealing with different periods into a single text.21 The latter two
18 Matthias Richter, The Embodied Text: Establishing Textual Identity in Early Chinese
Manuscripts (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 11–12.
19 For the problem of delineating textual identity see Richter, The Embodied Text, and Dirk
Meyer, Philosophy on Bamboo: Text and the Production of Meaning in Early China
(Leiden: Brill, 2011), 209–26. On the problem of working with unprovenanced manu-
scripts, such as those under discussion, from an ethical and methodological standpoint
see Paul R. Goldin, “Heng Xian and the problem of studying looted artifacts”, Dao
12, 2013, 153–60; Christopher J. Foster, “Introduction to the Peking University Han
bamboo strips: on the authentication and study of purchased manuscripts”, Early
China 40, 2017, 232–9.
20 For the question of multi-text manuscripts see the studies in Michael Friedrich and
Cosima Schwarke (eds), One-Volume Libraries: Composite and Multi-Text
Manuscripts (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2016). In Chinese-language discussions multi-text
manuscripts are often referred to as “miscellanies” (雜抄). On composite texts see
William G. Boltz, “The composite nature of early Chinese texts”, in Martin Kern
(ed.), Text and Ritual in Early China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005),
50–78; Christian Schwermann, “Collage-Technik als Kompositionsprinzip klassischer
chinesischer Prosa: Der Aufbau des Kapitels ‘Tāng wèn’ (Die Fragen des Tāng) im
Liè zǐ”, in Wolfgang Behr and Joachim Gentz (eds), Komposition und Konnotation:
Figuren des Kunstprosa im alten China (Bochum: Bochumer Jahrbuch zur
Ostasienforschung 2005), 125–60.
21 Both Yuri Pines, “Zhou history and historiography: introducing the bamboo manuscript
Xinian”, T’oung Pao 100, 4–5, 2014, 287–324, and Olivia Milburn, “The Xinian: an
ancient historical text from the Qinghua University collection of bamboo books”,
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in particular are divided into different sections distinguished by textual structure,
punctuation, and spacing on the bamboo.
What would make these anecdote collections unified wholes composed, for
lack of a better word, out of chapters, as opposed to a manuscript such as
Zhuangwang ji Cheng? For one thing, both the *Xinian and *Juzhi Wang
Tianxia texts are significantly longer and thus offer a broader sample set, wherein
patterns of similarity and difference across the sub-units may be perceived.
*Xinian also provides textual and material clues supporting its arrangement into
a single text – for example, its use of numbers on the back of its slips, which facil-
itates a chronological arrangement of the individual sections.22 *Juzhi Wang
Tianxia, on the other hand, is formatted more like the Zhuangwang ji Cheng in
that its sections are written one after another, with section dividers yet without
starting each section on a new slip.23 While it might well represent a more ad
hoc collection of short anecdotes on ancient rulers, the repetition of formulaic
opening sentences and a common dialogue form repeated across three of its sec-
tions support reading it as a single, coherent composition. By comparison, the
short Zhuangwang ji Cheng, at first glance, provides little basis for establishing
either an overarching chronology or a pattern of structural repetition.24
A multi-text manuscript, on the other hand, is a manuscript that bears multiple
texts on a single carrier. Historically speaking, multi-text manuscripts have taken
a wide variety of forms wherein texts of multiple origins are copied out together
on a single manuscript, often but certainly not always with a similar topical focus.
A good example of this from early China are the rishu 日書 manuscripts, on
which various independently titled texts dealing with the selection of auspicious
days for certain activities were brought together, often arranged in registers, with
yinyang theory, calendars, and diagrams.25 The units from which rishu are com-
posed occur in similar configurations across a range of manuscripts, yet in their
specific articulations, they betray local or individual concerns.26 For historical
narrative texts, Xiao Yunxiao has argued that three texts concerning the character
Early China 39, 2016, 53–109, have argued for the composite nature of the *Xinian,
integrating different source texts to form a composite of, among others, Chu and Jin per-
spectives on events in Chunqiu and Warring States history.
22 Qinghua Daxue Cang Zhanguo Zhujian (2) 清華大學藏戰國竹簡(貳), ed. Li Xueqin 李
學勤 (Shanghai: Zhongxi shuju, 2011), 135.
23 Shanghai Bowuguan Cang Zhanguo Chuzhushu 9 上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書(久), ed.
Ma Chengyuan 馬承源 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2012), 59–96 (images), 189–235
(transcription).
24 Such similarities become clearer when a larger group of manuscripts from the Shanghai
Museum slips, each of which combines two anecdotes on the Chu royal house, are exam-
ined together; this will be the subject of a larger study and lies outside the scope of the
current article.
25 For the state of the field in rishu scholarship, see Donald Harper and Marc Kalinowski
(eds), Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China: The Daybook Manuscripts of
the Warring States, Qin, and Han (Leiden: Brill, 2017), see especially Liu Lexian’s con-
tribution therein for a discussion of the nature of miscellanies (pp. 57–90).
26 Compare for example the inclusion of different Jianchu systems in the Shuihudi rishu,
one Qin and one Chu system, see Marc Kalinowski, “Hemerology and prediction in
the daybooks: ideas and practice”, in Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early
China, 139.
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Yi Yin 伊尹 found in the Qinghua manuscripts belong to one physical manu-
script, and while the texts are vastly different in style and clearly originated
from various sources, they show remarkable similarity to a composite narrative
in a Lüshi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋 chapter.27 This last example shows how the act
of bringing together different texts in a multi-text manuscript could play a forma-
tive role in textual production and transmission, leading, at least in some cases, to
the formation of a composite text perceived as a single textual unit.28
In this discussion, then, we seek to explore the full range of readings made
possible by the particular form of the relatively short Zhuangwang ji Cheng
manuscript. We begin from the standpoint that, from the perspective of reception,
the fact that two anecdotes appeared together on the same manuscript carrier pro-
vided a physical basis for reading the two together, while the punctuation and
white space between them allowed their simultaneous recognition as separate
textual units. A recipient could thus choose to read the anecdotes both separately,
as individual texts, and together, as a set of representative narratives on early Chu
kings. Our questions then become: what different readings does this physical con-
junction of distinct but related materials enable? And what different layers of
meaning do these readings generate, and how do they relate to each other?
We read the anecdotes first individually and then together, taking into
account that the narratives were part of a widely shared body of cultural memory
that provided a wealth of intertextual references and background knowledge
relevant to the stories. When reading the anecdotes individually, these intertext-
ual associations help contextualize characters and events and provide a means to
understand the more oblique references. When reading them together, these
associations define a frame within which one may analyse claims made across
the materials. For example, how are time and foreknowledge construed in
these narratives? Or if we understand collections such as the Zuozhuan 左傳
and the Guoyu 國語, among others, as repositories of the cultural memory of
the Chunqiu period available during the Warring States, then what happens
when the stories under discussion relate encounters and events and plot devel-
opments absent from those collections? The answers that this manuscript pro-
vides, the discussion shows, depend on the interaction between the levels of
meaning created by reading the texts singly, together, and as a part of the com-
posite that was Warring States historical knowledge in general.
“Zhuangwang ji cheng”
The anecdote “Zhuangwang ji cheng” is in dialogue form and introduces the
reader to King Zhuang of Chu at the height of his power. King Zhuang came
to be remembered as a valiant and wise if power-hungry ruler who, after a
27 Xiao Yunxiao 肖芸曉, “Shilun Qinghua Zhushu Yi Yin San Pian de Guanlian” 試論清
華竹書伊尹三篇的關聯, Jianbo Wang 簡帛網 2013.03.07, http://www.bsm.org.cn/sho-
w_article.php?id=1834.
28 For similar observations on the Han dynasty Yinshu 引書 manuscript, see Rens
Krijgsman, “An inquiry into the formation of readership in early China: using and pro-
ducing the *Yong yue 用曰 and Yinshu 引書 manuscripts”, T’oung Pao 104/1–2, 2018,
2–65.
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brief period of debauchery at the beginning of his reign, led Chu to major
victories over states such as Jin, Chen, Song, and Zheng. In the generations fol-
lowing him, a series of successions contested among the sons of King Gong
(r. 590–560 BCE), son of King Zhuang, plunged the state into an internecine
power struggle.29 Eventually, the forces of the southeastern state of Wu briefly
took the Chu capital, and King Zhao (r. 515–489 BCE), great-grandson of King
Zhuang, was briefly driven out.30 The reign of King Zhuang thus represented a
peak of the consolidation of power from which the Chu royal house rapidly des-
cended, before Chu again emerged as a dominating force during the Warring
States period.31 The “Zhuangwang ji cheng” anecdote exemplifies this framing:
【1V】莊王既成
【1R】莊王既成無射，32 以問沈尹子莖曰：“吾既果成無射以供春秋
之嘗，以【2】待33 四鄰之賓34， [吾]後之人，幾何保之？” 沈尹固辭，
王固問之，沈尹子莖答【3】曰：“四與五之間乎？” 王曰：“如四與五
之間，載之傳35 車以上乎？” 繄36 四航37 以【4A】逾乎？” 沈尹子莖
29 This saga is related in relatively pithy fashion in Shiji 史記, “Chu Shijia” 楚世家 25–47,
esp. 46; see Sima Qian 司馬遷, Shiji 史記 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 1699–1712.
Barry Blakeley, “Chu society and state: image vs. reality”, in Constance C. Cook and
John S. Major (eds), Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1999), 62–4, reviews some of the reasons to doubt this trad-
itional image of King Zhuang’s accomplishments. For understanding the anecdote in its
context, however, the memory of King Zhuang as an accomplished ruler is more relevant
than the historical reality of his political position. On the interpretation of Chu’s succes-
sion difficulties in the Zuozhuan, see ibid., 54–5, as well as the anecdote from Zuozhuan
左傳, Zhao 昭 13, cited therein (see Yang Bojun 楊伯峻, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu 春秋
左傳注 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 1350).
30 Shiji, “Chu Shijia”, 1714–8.
31 The set of Shanghai Museum anecdotes as a whole covers the period before this renewed
dominance of Chu and therefore, in narrative terms, reads as the gradual decline of Chu
power.
32 Reading this as a big bronze bell echoes with the offerings and visits of the lords men-
tioned in the next line; see Chen Wei, “Shangbo Liu Tiaoji” and Li Xueqin 李學勤, “Du
Shangbo Jian Zhuangwang ji Cheng Liang Zhang Biji” 讀上博簡莊王既成兩章筆記,
Kongzi 2000, 2007.7.16. For ease of presentation, our edition of the two texts on the
manuscript directly incorporates the emendations suggested by Chen Wei and we only
mark variants where we follow different readings.
33 Following Su Jianzhou 蘇建洲, “Chudu Shangbo (Liu)” 初讀上博（六）, Jianbo Wang
簡帛網, 2007.07.19, http://www.bsm.org.cn/show_article.php?id=636.
34 Following Su Jianzhou, “Chudu Shangbo (Liu)”.
35 Chen Wei, “Shangbo Liu Tiaoji”, reads as zhuan 專, meaning “full”, followed by Zhou
Fengwu 周鳳五, “Shangbo Liu Zhuangwang ji Cheng, Shengong chen Lingwang,
Pingwang wen Zhengshou, Pingwang yu Wangzi Mu Xintan” 上博六莊王既成、申
公臣靈王、平王問鄭夀、平王與王子木新探, Chuantong Zhongguo Yanjiu Jikan 傳
統中國研究集刊 3, 2007, 59 n. 5, who adds references to similar analogies of pushing
a cart up a hill. We follow Dong Shan 董珊, “Du Shangbo liu zaji” 讀上博六雜記,
Jianbo Wang 簡帛網, 2007.07.10, http://www.bsm.org.cn/show_article.php?id=603 in
reading as zhuan 傳 “single” in contrast to the multiple boats below.
36 Following Zhou Fengwu, “Shangbo Liu Xintan”, 58.
37 Read as ke 軻 here and ke 舸 below by the editor; however, the graph is not composed
differently. For this problematic graph see the overviews in Song Huaqiang 宋華強, “Shi
Shangbo Liu Zhangwang ji Cheng de Chuan” 釋上博六•莊王既成的“船”, Jianghan
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曰：“四航以逾。”┗
When King Zhuang [of Chu] had completed [the bell(s) called] “Tireless”
(wuyi), he asked Zijing, the Deputy of Shen, about it: “I have managed to
complete the ‘Tireless’ for use in providing the chang-offerings in the
spring and autumn and hosting the guests of the neighbouring states.38
How many of those who come after me will protect it/them?”
The Deputy of Shen firmly declined [to answer], and the King firmly
asked again. Zijing, the Deputy of Shen, replied: “Between four and
five?”39
“If [it will be] between four and five”, said the King, “[will they] load [it/
them] on a single cart and go up, or [will they] head downstream on four
boats?”
“Head downstream on four boats”, said Zijing, Deputy of Shen.
The first line sets the scene with reference to the king’s casting of a bell called
wuyi (or a metonymical set). Here, this is probably meant to evoke the casting of
a set of bells by King Jing of Zhou (r. 544–520) – an historically later event, but
likely known to a Warring States readership – which came to symbolize his
waste of resources and inability to find balance in government.40 King
Kaogu 江漢考古154/1, 2018, 112–4 (who reads as chuan 船) and Gao Youren,
“Shanghai Chujian San Wang Yanjiu”, (who reads as hang 航). Our reading follows
Zhou Fengwu “Shangbo Liu Xintan”, 59, who expands on the reading in Dong Shan,
“Du Shangbo Liu zaji” of hang, meaning a group of boats tied together in a flotilla in
contrast to the single cart above.
38 While the chang offerings originally pointed to a particular sacrifice in the autumn, it
later came to denote more generally the seasonal offerings in both spring and autumn;
see Gao Youren, “Shanghai Chujian San Wang Yanjiu”, 67–8.
39 Chen Wei, “Shangbo Liu Tiaoji” reads this as referring to 4–5 people, while Fan
Guodong 凡國棟, “Du Shangbo Chuzhushu Liu Ji” 讀上博楚竹书六記, Jianbo Wang
簡帛網, 2007.07.09, http://www.bsm.org.cn/show_article.php?id=599, takes it as gen-
erations, in both cases referring to the kings Ling through Zhao. Most readings under-
stand it as a prophecy about the eventual sacking of the capital Ying. See also Zhou
Fengwu, “Shangbo Liu Xintan”, 59. The reason it is “between” four and five is that
both Jia’ao 郏敖 and Zi’ao 訾敖 were not incorporated into the royal ancestral line
with the title of “king”, instead being referred to by their place of burial and the title
“chief” or “mount” (ao 敖); see Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, 1223–4,
Durrant, Li, and Schaberg (trans.), Zuo Tradition, 1332, n. 109 and 1494, n. 610.
40 The story of the bell of King Jing of Zhou 周景王 (r. 544–520 BCE) can be found in
Zuozhuan, Zhao 21 (Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, 1423–4), where the improper
size of the bell is linked with the endurance of reign (note here that the royal house could
no longer afford to cast its own ritual vessels at this point and had to ask them from other
states). The size of the Wuyi bell proposed by King Jing is presented as overreaching,
causing physical stress and imbalance, and as a result, the inability to prolong one’s
rule. See also the Guoyu 國語, “Zhouyu xia” 周語下 (Shanghai guji, 1978), 122,
wherein the excess and ambition of King Jing is expressed by rendering him as casting
a whole set of just wuyi bells (“周景王將鑄無射，而為之大林”) which lose their effect-
iveness and drain the resources of the state at the same time. Note that a Western Zhou
bell 南宮乎鐘 carries the inscription: “Made a big set of harmonious bells; their name is
Wuyi” 作大林協鐘，茲名曰無射. See Chen Wei 陳偉, “Shangbo Chuzhushu
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Zhuang’s appetite for power is elsewhere symbolized by bronze as well, in the
famous scene where he inquires after the weight of the ding-cauldrons of the
Zhou royal house.41 This reference to the wuyi thus activates an intertextual
web of associations that both thicken the idea of Duke Zhuang’s hegemony
and hint at the problems to come after his reign.
This reading of the bell as signifier of the hegemony of the Chu royal house
sets the discursive terms of the narrative. After noting that he cast the bell to be
used in the seasonal offerings and in the interactions of his realm with its neigh-
bours – in other words, to support his reign both temporally and spatially – King
Zhuang asks the Deputy of Shen how many successors of his will preserve it, i.e.
maintain his current power. Showing the usual reluctance to answer a question
the audience knows to have negative implications, the Deputy is finally pres-
sured into cryptically answering “between four and five?”42 Fully aware that
the Deputy is dodging the real question, the King presses on and asks whether
the future of his house should be likened to loading the heavy bell on a cart and
pushing it upwards, or to going downriver on four boats. The Deputy of Shen
suggests the latter.
Here the ambiguity of the metaphor comes into play. Pushing a heavy cart
uphill, as noted by Zhou Fengwu, is a common metaphor for describing hard-
ship,43 and the alternative provided would seem to represent “smooth sailing”,
so to speak. Yet since as readers we know that the subsequent history of the
Chu royal house was anything but smooth, is this indeed King Zhuang’s under-
standing of the metaphor? Alternatively, the Deputy of Shen’s answer could be
read in the reverse. While arduous, the image of the cart suggests the house of
Chu working together on a single goal, i.e. getting the one bell onto a single cart
and slowly pushing it upwards. The four boats then, should perhaps be consid-
ered not as a flotilla tied together and working in tandem to carry the bell, but
rather as symbolizing the division of the reign along a quick succession of four
to five rulers while the reign is steadily “going south”. More concretely, the
metaphor refers to the eventual sacking of Ying during the reign of King
Zhao. As Chen Wei and Kunihiro Yuasa have pointed out, Chu was threatened
both by Jin (north, or “up”) and Wu (downriver of Chu), before the Wu armies
sacked the capital and destroyed Chu’s bells, taking the glory they represent
Zhuangwang ji Cheng Chudu” 上博楚竹書莊王既成初讀, Guwenzi Yanjiu 古文字研
究 27, 2008, 485, who also notes this trope occurring for Duke Zhuang of Lu 鲁庄公
in a reference to a Shenzi 慎子 fragment in the Chuxue Ji 初學記 and in the
Shanghai Museum Cao Mo zhi Zhen 曹沫之陳. In the latter story, he only casts a
mould and has it destroyed later. In this light, the text’s use of guo 果 (“managed to,
indeed”) seems to highlight this aspect by pointing out that King Zhuang succeeded
where others failed.
41 Zuozhuan, Xuan 3, Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, 669. Here, he also hears that it
is not about the (size of) the ding-vessels but about “virtue” (de 德).
42 The Chief of Shen’s reluctance perhaps also harks back to a famous anecdote about the
beginning of King Zhuang’s reign, when the King issued a mandate against criticism,
prompting the minister Wu Ju 伍舉 to couch his critique in the form of a metaphor.
See Shiji, “Chu shijia”, 1700.
43 Zhou Fengwu, “Shangbo Liu Xintan”, 59.
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downriver.44 As such, the text might be taken to refer more directly to future
events. Here, the intertextual significance of the bronze bell comes full circle.
The very symbol of Duke Zhuang’s overlordship would eventually be destroyed
during the sacking of Ying, and in light of that, the ominous overtones of the
“Tireless” bell in other stories ring true here as well. In any case, the reading
of the metaphor is not specified in the anecdote itself; it is up to the reader to
appreciate it in light of later events in Chu history.
“Chengong chen Lingwang”
Like “Zhuangwang ji cheng”, the second anecdote is complete in its own right.
It opens with a brief account of an event in the past, providing an anchor point,
and then moves back to the narrative present:
【4B】禦於朸述，陳公子皇止皇子。【5】王子圍奪之，陳公爭之，王
子圍立為王。陳公子皇見王，王曰：“陳公【6】忘夫朸述之下乎？”
陳公曰：“臣不知君王之將為君，如臣知君王【7】之為君，臣將或
致45 焉。” 王曰：“不穀以笑陳公，是言棄之，今日【8】陳公事不榖，
必以是心。” 陳公跪拜，起答：“臣為君王臣，君王免之【9】死，不以
晨（振）46 斧疐（鑕）47，何敢心之有。” ┗
During the defence of Lishu, Duke Zihuang of Chen detained Huangzi (Huang
Jie). Prince Wei stole him away, and the Duke of Chen contested it. [Later],
Prince Wei took the throne. Duke Zihuang of Chen had an audience with the
king, who said, “Has the Duke of Chen forgotten what happened at Lishu?”
The Duke of Chen said, “I didn’t know that Your Majesty would become the
ruler. If I had known that you would become the ruler, then perhaps I would
have taken it further.”
The king said, “I’m [merely] joking with you over it, and with that I will put
[the affair] aside. From now on you must serve me with this same intent.”
44 Chen Wei, “Shangbo Liu Tiaoji”, quotes the Huainanzi 淮南子 “Taizu” 泰族:“闔閭伐楚，
五戰入郢，燒高府之粟，破九龍之鐘，鞭荊平王之墓，舍昭王之宮。”. Fan Guodong,
“Du Shangbo Chuzhushu Liu Ji”, develops this line of argument from the perspective of
four to five generations, also arriving at the sacking of Ying (506–505 BCE) during the
reign of King Zhao. He notes the similarity of this prophecy to others occurring in the
Zuozhuan. Kunihiro Yuasa, “Zhuangwang ji Cheng de Yuyan” 莊王既成的預言, in
Kunihiro Yuasa and Bai Yutian (trans.), Zhujian Xue: Zhongguo Gudai Sixiang Tanjiu,
89–100, esp. 99, tries in addition to pinpoint the moment of textual composition on the
basis of this prophecy, suggesting that the authors of the text introduced ambiguity on purpose
so as not to alert readers that the prophecy was contrived later (as opposed to being an accurate
historical record of the events in question). As will be clear below, we interpret this ambiguity
and the use of prophecy as a narrative device differently.
45 Read as “to the death” 致死 by Chen Wei, “Shangbo Liu Tiaoji” (based on a phrase in
Zuozhuan, Zhao 8, quoted below); read as “send” 送 by Li Xueqin, “Du Shangbo Jian
Liang Zhang Biji”, in the sense of handing the prisoner over to him.
46 We follow He Youzu 何有祖, “Du Shangbo Liu Zhaji” 讀上博六札記, Jianbo Wang
簡帛網, 2007.07.09, http://www.bsm.org.cn/show_article.php?id=596.
47 Following He Youzu, “Du Shangbo Liu Zhaji”, both terms refer to forms of punishment
(block and axe).
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The Duke of Shen knelt and bowed. Rising, he replied, “I will serve Your
Majesty. [Since] Your Majesty has spared me from execution and has not
hefted the axe or knife, how dare [I] harbour any intentions?”
The introductory portion of this anecdote harks back to an event also described
in the Zuozhuan. The Duke of Chen – then known as Chuanfeng Xu (穿封戌) –
and Prince Wei of Chu set out on a raid against the state of Zheng, in the com-
pany of men from Qin.48 A certain Huang Jie – the Huangzi of this text – came
out from the Zheng garrison at Chengjun 城麇, did battle with the Chu forces,
and was promptly taken captive by Chuanfeng Xu. Prince Wei contended with
Chuanfeng Xu over Huang Jie, seeking credit for the capture. Thanks to careful
telegraphing by Bozhou Li, who was charged with managing the dispute, Huang
Jie picked up on the situation and played along with the Prince’s claim. The
enraged Chuanfeng Xu then went after the Prince with a blade, to no avail.49
When the former Prince Wei, now King Ling of Chu, brings the affair up in
the dialogue comprising the bulk of the text, the situation is somewhat more
serious than is immediately obvious from its framing at the beginning (though
an informed reader from Warring States Chu might well know that immedi-
ately). The Duke of Chen’s relief at escaping death or mutilation contains no
hyperbole – it is easy to imagine that the new king might brutally punish some-
one who had once assaulted him with a deadly weapon.
On the face of it, then, King Ling exercises remarkable restraint in overlooking the
Duke of Chen’s prior behaviour, and one might take the anecdote as a simple example
of the social power of mercy. However, the niceties of the dialogue portray both
speakers as quite conscious of the ongoing power dynamic of the situation. King
Ling’s communicative strategy seems to be to keep the Duke of Chen off guard.
Beginning with a confrontational question, the king then listens to the Duke of
Chen’s awkward backpedalling; then the king disavows his own question with a
laugh, only to turn his disavowal around into an immediate demand for loyalty
along with a veiled threat. These rapid changes in communicative register seem
intended to disorient, amplifying the sense that King Ling is in control of the dialogue.
For his part, the Duke of Chen, in his final acquiescence, leaves room for the
reader to question his motives. His rhetorical question, translated above as “how
dare [I] harbour any intentions?” (何敢心之有 – literally, “how dare I have
[such a] mind”), recalls King Ling’s earlier wording: “[you must serve me]
with this same intent” (必以是心 – literally, “must use this mind”). The
Duke’s deferential protestation might thus also be read as repudiating the
king’s request for loyalty. The Zuozhuan account of Chuanfeng Xu’s appoint-
ment as the Duke of Chen is of similar character, lending the reading support:
使穿封戌為陳公，曰：“城麇之役不諂。” 侍飲酒於王。王曰：“城麇
之役，女知寡人之及此，女其辟寡人乎？” 對曰：“若知君之及此，臣
必致死禮以息楚。”50
48 On Chuanfeng Xu’s appointment as Duke of Chen, see Zuozhuan, Zhao 8, quoted below.
49 For this story see Zuozhuan, Xiang 26, Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, 1115.
50 Zuozhuan, Zhao 8, Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, 1304. This sequence is clearly
related to the middle portion of the manuscript anecdote, and Chuanfeng Xu’s answer
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[King Ling] made Chuanfeng Xu the Duke of Chen, saying, “During the
campaign at Chengjun, you did not curry my favour”. [Chuanfeng Xu]
attended upon the king during a drinking session, and the King said,
“During the campaign at Chengjun, if you had known I would come to
this, would you perhaps have repudiated me?”
[Chuanfeng Xu] replied, “If I had known you would come to this, I
would certainly have given my life to put Chu at rest in accordance
with ritual propriety”.
The Duke of Chen’s final utterance here is similarly ambiguous. The term xi 息,
above translated as “to put at rest”, is versatile, encompassing the ideas of both
ease and death. By shifting the focus of his response to the state of Chu rather
than the king himself, and by evoking the independent standard of “ritual propri-
ety”, the Duke of Chen on the one hand dodges the king’s question while on the
other hand clearly implying that the King’s actions and his usurpation of the
throne by killing his nephew were not in accordance with ritual propriety – giving
ample licence to have fought him to the death. Judging from the Zuozhuan
sequence immediately following, in which the Marquis of Jin and a functionary
discuss whether Chen will soon meet its doom, early readers would have viewed
the potential consequences of the Duke of Chen’s frankness as quite serious.51
With careful choice of words, then, this relatively brief dialogue captures in a
few short lines the spirit, if not the details, of the backbiting political situation
that supposedly held sway at the Chu royal court in the post-King Gong genera-
tions. The overall sense is of a pair of erstwhile enemies reaching a begrudging,
precarious, yet mutual detente, in which a self-serving yet wily minister negoti-
ates an image-conscious ruler’s requests for personal loyalty.
The anecdotes in intertextual context
As typical for anecdotes, both passages start out with a defining event as a frame
for the story – the completion of the wuyi bell and the capture of Huangjie at Lishu,
respectively. In doing so they situate the encounters they describe in the historical
consciousness of the Warring States elite. The few details provided about each
event spell out its implications for the central theme the anecdotes explore. In
the former anecdote, King Zhuang himself suggests that he has met the expecta-
tions for a ruler and steers the central question to the future of his house and his
legacy. The latter has the narrator relate an encounter subsequent to the battle of
the frame, to emphasize the potential for animosity between King Ling and the
Duke of Chen. Such a set-up is fairly standard across early anecdotes, whether
in the Hanfeizi 韓非子, the Shuoyuan 說苑, or the *Baoxun 保訓.52
here sheds some light on possible readings for the difficult term zhi 致 in the correspond-
ing part of the manuscript.
51 Zuozhuan, Zhao 8, Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, 1304.
52 Rens Krijgsman, “Cultural memory and excavated anecdotes in ‘documentary’ narrative:
mediating generic tensions in the Baoxun manuscript”, in van Els and Queen (eds),
Between History and Philosophy, 301–29.
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The dialogues that follow, however, develop the central problem in a cryptic
and character-focused direction. The answers of the ministers to their kings (四
與五之間乎; 臣將或致焉) share a sense that ambiguity is necessary in order to
avoid offence and build up tension. In this sense, these anecdotes share the
Zuozhuan’s predilection for ambiguous language, prompting the reader to
guess at the true motives, intentions, and inner emotional depth of the characters
involved.53 But where the Zuozhuan as a unit contains earlier and later material
that provides the clues to the answers – and sometimes renders them explicit
through prophecy and judgement – these anecdotes provide no such framework
in their own right, and it seems that each one relied more on information beyond
the text itself (including both the other anecdote on the manuscript and the read-
er’s assumed broader knowledge of Chunqiu history) to get its message across.
The Zuozhuan itself comprises one body of such knowledge, and some read-
ers of the manuscript may have been familiar with the Zuo formulation of the
events discussed here – if not necessarily in its final form.54 However, recent
manuscript finds have made it increasingly clear that various interpretations of
events from the Chunqiu period circulated among the Warring States, the
Zuozhuan presenting only one perspective among many.55 The Zhuangwang
ji Cheng manuscript, we hold, proposes another such perspective, sharing
some of its specific motifs and allusions with the Zuo and other works but inte-
grating them into its own interpretive frame that plays with their inherent ambi-
guity to enhance the reading experience. Rather than viewing them as equations
to be solved with the help of external knowledge, we hold, the manuscript
deploys these allusions to bolster its critique of the teleological assumption of
history as hermeneutics.56
Concretely, the theme of the wuyi bell, for example, is used in the Zuozhuan
as a means to fault the later King Jing of Zhou for his excess and overreach in a
time of destitution, a theme that is reinforced by similar anecdotes regarding his
excess and later specification of his downfall. In narratives such as the Cao Mo
zhi Zhen and the fragment from the Shenzi, the same trope is attributed to Duke
Zhuang of Lu 魯莊公 (r. 693–662), but likewise used to indicate that the Duke
should be cultivating his virtue and taking care of his people instead of spending
resources on big bells. In the Cao Mo zhi Zhen narrative, the act of casting has
not yet taken place, and the Duke is persuaded to destroy the mould of the
bronze. In the current anecdote, however, King Zhuang is instead credited
with the actual completion of the bell (over a hundred years before King Jing
of Zhou and 30 years after Duke Zhuang of Lu). He managed where others
failed, and it is against this backdrop that the bell signifies both his ambition
and hegemony. The reader cannot, however, forget all the other encounters
53 David Schaberg, A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography
(Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), 178.
54 On the timeline of the Zuozhuan’s formulation, see Durrant, Li, and Schaberg, Zuo
Tradition, xx, xxx–xxxi, xxxviii–lix.
55 On the Zuozhuan’s relationship to Warring States textual practices see also Durrant, Li,
and Schaberg, Zuo Tradition, “Introduction”, xxxviii–liv.
56 This application of the term “teleology” follows Grethlein, Experience and Teleology in
Ancient Historiography, 2.
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wherein the casting of such bells reflected badly on the ruler and his future. The
underlying question that the text tries to answer is thus not, as in the Zuozhuan
and Guoyu, how King Zhuang managed to transform himself from a lazy and
seemingly incompetent ruler to a hegemon, but rather: did he foresee the even-
tual destruction of his legacy?
The second anecdote, for its part, explores an encounter familiar from Zuozhuan
in a completely different way. Whereas the Zuozhuan presents the Duke of Chen as
straightforward, non-fawning, and honour-bound to violent intent, the anecdote
here has him answer in a roundabout manner, fully submitting to the king’s author-
ity and disavowing any hostile ambitions. The Zuozhuan episode does not have
this coda. Instead, it shifts the focus outside of the immediate encounter into fore-
knowledge by having the Marquis of Jin ask whether or not the house of Chen is
bound to perish, and the audience is left wondering how the threat in the specific
exchange was neutralized, a question answered in the anecdote here.57
While the main events and important encounters of the anecdotes have
already been established by tradition then, the combined framing of the anec-
dotes offers readers a distinct hermeneutic coding built around those events,
encouraging them to explore alternative readings, ambiguities, and resolutions.58
Read together, they provide a parallel tradition, interacting in complex ways with
other texts and filling in empty spaces with a (re-)imagination of how the char-
acters would have phrased questions, mitigated power dynamics, and explored
the fragile future.
The futility of foreknowledge
Rhetorically, each anecdote relies on a constructed gap in time between its set-
ting and an event or action that the characters discuss, though the chronological
directions of those gaps are precise opposites. The conversation between King
Zhuang and the Deputy of Shen occupies the “now” in the narrative of the
first anecdote, but the topic of conversation, the preservation of the house of
Mi’s recently consolidated legacy, lies in the narrative’s future. King Ling
and the Duke of Chen, on the other hand, “reminisce” back to their earlier alter-
cation during the Battle of Chengjun, now in the reasonably distant past. The
opposite directionality of these constructed gaps creates an inward-directed
framing for the combined text, enhancing its readability as a cohesive unit.
Time skips can serve a variety of rhetorical purposes in the construction of
literary character – to allow narrative room for character development, for
example, or, inversely, to highlight the unchanging nature of the individual char-
acter.59 In the anecdotes examined in this paper, the implications of the time
57 Zuozhuan, Zhao 8; Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, 1305.
58 On hermeneutic coding, see Roland Barthes, S/Z (tr. Richard Miller) (New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1974), 18–20.
59 The latter, Bakhtin argued, was the purpose of the peculiar construct of time (or “chronotope”
in Bakhtin’s terms) in classical Greek romances. See Bakhtin, “Forms of time and of the
chronotope in the novel”, cited in Jennifer R. Ballengee, “Below the belt: looking into the
matter of adventure-time”, in R. Bracht Branham (ed.), The Bakhtin Circle and Ancient
Narrative (Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing and Groningen University Library, 2005),
131–5.
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