Research On Ye Shaoweng&the Record Of Four Emperors

Ye Shaoweng was born in around1185BC, the late time of SouthernSung dynasty, also likely the early time of the Yuan Dynasty.His native place might be Jian’an, Fujian province. He might be an number of Directorate of Imperial Academy, and served as an official historian.During his tenure, he associated with scholastic high officials and lords, and one of the representatives is Zhen Dexiu. Spending his time creating poems, he was famous as one of the Jiang Hu Poem Group for a period of time.Ye was influenced by Zhu Xi and Ye Shi. However, he learned widely from others and was never a stickler for a certain school. He contacted with people like Zhu Xi from Ziyang school, Ye Shi from Shuixin school, Lu Jiuyuan from Xiangshan school. Therefore, we should not consider him as a number from a specific school, but a Academic Partner. Ye’s works include the note The Record of Four Emperors, and some poems. After compiled and edit scattering documents and manuscripts of it, we now have discovered one lost article and two lost poems. The note can be divided into to parts。In the first part, the section Jia, and section Yi was completed between the11th year (1241AC), and the18th year(1241AC) of the EmperorSunglizong’s reign. In the second part, the other three sections Bing, Yi, Ding were finished after1233, and probably remained draft. The editions of The Record of Four Emperors have three versions, Imperial Collection of Four, Zhibuzuzhai series, and the part of the copy in Shuo Fu.Among them, Bao Tingbo’s Zhibuzuzhai series is of the highest quality.When creating The Record of Four Emperors, Ye held the principle of collecting the historical events, and they were foreign affairs, national policies, and talents which were connected with the country. The author gained the book resource from his life experience,the information from his reading,others telling, and quotations from other books. Because Ye valued the primary source, so he did not quot from other books much, and most of the quotations were used to be discussed. At the same time, Ye tried to do entry research, and added the specialized proofreading entry. It can be told that from his attitude toward Gong Yizheng and Shi Miyuan, Ye is a responsible historian with his fair compilation and revision of history.All the entries in The Record of Four Emperors can be classified into historical events, systems, anecdotes, and assessments of Qiantang geography, scenery and customs. But it’s compilation style is out of sequence. The reason might be that Ye did not predesign. However, it did not bring a bad influence on the book’s value. It can compile and edit scattering documents and manuscripts of The Complete Works ofSung,Sung Dynasty’s All Poems, can collate other books, and can annotate relative parts in Sung Dynasty.On one hand, from the specific content in The Record of Four Emperors, this paper verifies the system, form and functions of Jian Tie ling paper, Guan Gao Ling paper, Monks paper, and explore historical events in SouthernSung Dynasty written in it. On the other hand, following the example of Xu Gui’s Error Correction of The Record of Four Emperors, this paper quotes another seven records with mistakes to verify.