The Texual Research On "Xu Shi Shuo"

After the coming out of "A New Account of Tales of the World", lots of imitative books and sequels came into being, forming a series of literary works which was called the「Tales of the World J series in the history of Chinese short stories. Kongpingzhong's "XuShiShuo"is one of the three ShiShuo style novels written in Song dynasty that are still existing in the world.The materials of Kongpingzhong's "XuShiShuo" mainly came from the authentic history between the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Five Dynasties. The people of Song dynasty consider "XuShiShuo" as a trim to the essence of the history from which readers could learn things easily, because it stemmed from historical records. This point of view revealed the editorial purpose and practical meaning of this kind of books and offered a perspective to study this book from the traditional view and search for its original nature. Qianxizuo thought this book derived from "History of Southern Dynasties", "History of Northern Dynasties", "JiuTangsShu" and "Old History of the Five Dynasties". He believed that "XuShiShuo" could function as a compiling of "Old History of the Five Dynasties".The several versions of "XuShiShuo" that still exist today can be classified into 1103 items(excluding the lost one),38 subjects.The earliest offprint of "XuShiShuo" existing today is the handwritten copy in Ming dynasty in Shanghai Library, where also keeps handwritten copy by Zhangrong in Qing Dynasty which has a postscript written by Sunyuanxiang &Jiangfengzao. In Nanjing Library, there are twelve handwritten copies of "XuShiShuo", all of them were completed in Qing dynasty. "XuShiShuo" had been excerpted by many later literary works, such as the 31st volume of Zencao's "Lei Shuo" which had quoted 47 items from "XuShiShuo", as well as Zhonghua press's incomplete edition of "The Yongle Encyclopedia" which contained 26 items of the same book. the offprint of it was so rare. After Qing Dynasty, "XuShiShuo" was widely circulated and gained more influence because it was extracted by various of series.Based on the Shoushange series edition(block-printed edition), the emendation work of "XuShiShuo" this time revised the book according to the Wanweibiecang edition(handwritten copy), Zencao's "LeiShuo" as well as the items of "XuShiShuo" in the incomplete edition of "The Yongle Encyclopedia ", and finally comes up with a more reliable version. The essay obtains the source of every item through detailed textual research, farthest recovers the situation when "XuShiShuo" was compiled as well as the criterions the writer adopted when choosing items. By making textual research on "XuShiShuo" and history records, the essay not only discriminates part of the records of authentic history from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Five Dynasties, but also corrects mistakes in the novel and history records. Some items provide complemental confirmations for the textual research in the history records published by Zhonghua press. The essay corrects the mistakes in "XuShiShuo" by history records for the most part. Nine of the items in "XuShiShuo" came from novels written in former Dynasties which had been quoted by "TaiPingGuangJi", so those items were probably quoted from "TaiPingGuangJi" directly. Meanwhile, being absent in the current edition of "XuShiShuo", the item named "it's ashamed that there is no well downstairs" which was quoted by "LeiShuo" Vol.31 can be interpolated into the edition in accordance to LeiShuo's quotations.The documentary value of "XuShiShuo" is rather important. For instance, the item 589 "Hantuizhi plays a joke on Mengjiao" and the item 1018 "The story of MuRongYanChao" can be found in "XuShiShuo" only, the item 730 "it would be better to learn to read" and item 935 "BaCaiLuLang" provides important alternate scripts for the two allusions "Not know A from B" and "BaMiLuLang". At the same time, "XuShiShuo" is an important material for the compiling of "Old History of the Five Dynasties". Eight materials in "Old History of the Five Dynasties" came from "XuShiShuo".