Zijingbian 自警編

Zijingbian 自警編 “Book of self-admonition” was written during the Southern Song period by Zhao Shanliao 趙善璙 (fl. 1230s), a seventh-generation descendant of the dynastic founder Song Taizong 宋太宗. He hailed from Nanhai 南海 (today’s Guangzhou 廣州, Guangdong) and was prefect of Jiangzhou 江州. The book of 9 juan length assembles information on eminent scholar-officials of the Song period and points out their achievements and behaviour as guidelines for everyone. The biographies or stories are arranged into 8 chapters and 55 sub-chapters characterising specific strengths, namely learning and knowledge (xuewen 學問), cultivation of character (zaoxiu 操修), managing the family (qijia 齊家), interacting with others (jiewu 接物), engagement and withdrawal (chuchu 出處), serving the ruler (shijun 事君), governance (zhengshi 政事), and others (shiyi 拾遺). The content of the book extends up to the Jingkang reign-period 靖康 (1126–1127), after which only occasional discussions by Zhu Xi 朱熹 were included. Although many of the listed topics are familiar to readers, they are systematically analysed and clearly categorised, making the text easy to read. The sections on finance and taxation (caifu 財賦), military affairs (bing 兵), and „collection of omissions“ (拾遺) all carry an implicit sense of warning and admonition, intended to serve as a remedy for contemporary and future generations. The original version included commentaries specifying the sources of quotations, but many of them have since been lost, likely due to omissions during transcription and printing. The text is found in the series Siku quanshu 四庫全書 and – in extracts –Lidai xiaoshi 歷代小史, Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編 and Yingyin Yuan-Ming shanben congshu 景印元明善本叢書.