武億年譜

The Chronicle of Wu Yi

乾隆、嘉慶間，江南漢學考據之風勃興，武億（1745-1799）生長中州，獨預其流，誠所謂磊砢特立之士。尋撢諸經舊義，著《三禮義證》、《群經義證》兩書；另谿徑別闢，專硏諸經句讀異同，成《經讀考異》十二卷，三書並收入《清經解》正、續編。復雅好收藏碑版文字，河南固多舊跡，游歷所至，捫苔剔蘚，盡心摹拓，多前人未經著錄者，於碑刻文獻之流播，厥功甚偉；武氏熟諳諸史，故所著金石跋文各種，論者稱其精詣當為潛硏堂之亞。性強項，不畏權勢，為令博山，杖擊和珅番役，直聲震天下。其人其學，皆卓卓可傳，惜硏究者乏人。今特追按事跡，分年編綴，藉存行誼之梗概，以為學者論世知人之資。

Wu Yi (1745-1799) was a celebrated scholar who led a legendary life. Having passed the final imperial exam in the 45th year of Qianlong’s reign (1780) and been simultaneously conferred the title of Jinshi in the same year, Wu was not appointed to a county magistrate until the 56th year (1791), when he took the magistrate’s office in Boshan of Shandong province. As soon as his term started did Wu establish local schools, and initiate a reform of manners. His term was abruptly ended 7 months later for he ran into conflict with Qianlong’s powerful but debauched courtier He Shen. Tall and robust, Wu nevertheless accomplished a delicate scholarship in a book discussing the problems of punctuation in the classics, Jingdu kaoyi. It was the first work of its kind in the Chinese history. Although evidential studies were originated from Jiangnan where most fine scholars of this expertise came from, Wu mastered the scholarship as meticulously as the Jiangnan literati, despite himself being born in Henan in northern China. His Qunjing yizheng, Sanli yizheng and Jingdu kaoyi were also highly regarded and were collected into the series of Huangqing jingjie. Besides, Wu was one of the pioneers in epigraphy studies in Henan where, as the cradle of the ancient Chinese civilization, preserved many monuments or inscription stones. A great number of stone inscriptions were made known to the world because of Wu’s effort on rubbing. In addition to reproducing and circulating the inscriptions, Wu’s accomplishment in evidential studies was only comparable by Qian Daxin at his time. In sum, Wu was an important scholar during the Qianjia reign, despite being generally overlooked by modern historians. By composing various materials into a chronicle of Wu, this paper calls for attention from modern historians to Wu’s scholarly accomplishments.