Collecting the Pei Cen Stele in Qing China

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/24684791-12340050

Ming Qing Yanjiu 24 (2020) 245–278

brill.com/mqyj

Collecting the Pei Cen Stele in Qing China

Weitian YanPhD candidate, Kress Foundation Department of Art History, University of Kansas, [email protected]

Abstract

This article investigates three vignettes in the collecting of the Pei Cen Stele during the eighteenth century. A Han-dynasty monument in Barköl, Xinjiang, the Pei Cen Stele tells of an unrecorded military achievement against the Xiongnu in 137. I begin by discussing how court officials used this artefact to support the Qing imperial expan-sion into central Asia. The second episode identifies four major types of copies of the Pei Cen Stele—facsimiles, replicas, tracing copies, and forgeries—and examines their varied functions to the epigraphic community at the time. The final section analyses the transitional style of this inscription through calligraphers’ innovative transcrip-tions. Appropriations of the Pei Cen Stele in these political, social, and artistic contexts, I argue, pinpoint the idea of collecting as a form of invention in the Qing dynasty. Collectors invented the Pei Cen Stele as a symbol of prosperity, a cultural relic, and a calligraphy exemplar.

Keywords

Pei Cen Stele – epigraphy – Xinjiang – Huang Yi

…People were trying to make sense of the old buildings and images they came across and they were fashioning artifacts that they hoped would help them find their own way back into history.

Christopher S. Wood1

1 Wood 2008: 23.

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∵

Record of Pei Cen’s Meritorious Achievements 裴岑記功碑, commonly known as the Pei Cen Stele 裴岑碑, is a stone monument originally erected in the area of Barköl, Xinjiang. Seen from afar, the narrow top and wide base of the stone re-semble a standing figure and thus earned the location where it originally stood the name Shirenzi 石人子, or The Human Rock.2 The monument displays six vertical lines of archaic characters. Deeply carved into the face of the stone, this inscription presents a mixture of the seal script (zhuanshu 篆書) and the clerical script (lishu 隸書). Now held by the Xinjiang Museum in Urümqi, the engraved stone looks fragmented and eroded today. Its darkened front and damaged condition speak of the countless times that inked-fibres pads were tamped over its surface to produce circulatable rubbing images, an indication of the popularity of the inscription. The engraved text on the stele reads:

In the eighth month of the second year of Han-dynasty Yonghe era (137), the prefect of Dunhuang, Pei Cen of Yunzhong, led a prefecture troop of three-thousand people to punish the King of the Huyan and others, executing members of the clan and defeating the entire army of the enemy. Eliminating the disaster of the western region and eradicating the calamity of the four prefectures [of Gansu corridor], the frontier [now becomes] governed and peaceful. When [the general Pei Cen] arrived at this place, he established a shrine at the grand lake to commended [his achievements] for ten-thousand generations.

惟漢永和二年八月，敦煌太守雲中裴岑將郡兵三千人，誅呼衍王等，斬馘部眾，克敵全師。除西域之灾，蠲四郡之害，邊竟艾安。振威

到此，立海祠以表萬世。3

The inscription commemorates the military success of an unrecorded Han-dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) general Pei Cen (c. 130s) over a king of the Xiongnu in 137. Compared with other well-known inscriptions that were situ-ated in the heartland of China, the relatively remote location of the Pei Cen Stele created additional difficulty for access. However, ever since its first discovery in the eighteenth century, the Pei Cen Stele was featured in nearly every catalogues

2 Niu Yunzhen and Chu Jun, Jinshi tu, 1: 60–61.3 Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. For the original passage in Chinese, see

Gao Wen 1997: 58–60.

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of stone inscriptions, and its rubbings became a desirable collectible among scholars interested in epigraphy. The narrative about the finding of the Pei Cen Stele, the propagation of its copies, and the interpretation of its unique style con-tributed to the aura of this distant Han monument. The process through which the Pei Cen Stele gained unprecedented attention from government officials, epigraphic scholars, and renowned calligraphers provides an important case to consider the politics of collecting stone inscriptions in late imperial China.

Jinshi xue 金石學, often translated as epigraphy, refers to a specialized area of antiquarian scholarship that focuses on the close examination of inscribed texts on bronze vessels, stone steles, and natural cliffs. Through his vigorous collection of stone inscriptions, Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072) of the Song dynasty (960–1279) used these materials to verify recorded histories and thus fulfil the Confucian goal of knowing the past.4 Scholars of the subsequent dy-nasties continued to invest in epigraphy as a form of antiquarianism, but it was not until the early seventeenth century that epigraphic study again domi-nated the scholarly lives of Chinese intellectuals. Scholars such as Gu Yanwu 顧炎武 (1613–1682) travelled across China to conduct on-site investigations of ancient stone monuments. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, kaozheng 考證, or evidential scholarship, emerged as a predominant meth-odology that stresses the textual analysis of Confucian classics and canoni-cal historical documents.5 Stone inscriptions functioned as a core material of evidential scholarship because they were viewed as uncorrupted primary resources that can help verify the orthography, pronunciation, and meaning of classical texts. This trend of historical research also had an impact on artis-tic culture. Calligraphers found inspiration from early stone inscriptions and began to use these archaic forms of Chinese writing as their stylistic models. The avid search for ancient engravings began in northern China, primarily in Shaanxi, Henan, and Shandong provinces. Later, it expanded to southern and western frontiers, including Guangdong, Fujian, and Xinjiang. The discovery and promotion of the Pei Cen Stele was a result of the growing epigraphic cul-ture during the Qing dynasty.

The present article investigates three vignettes about the collecting of the Pei Cen Stele in the political, social, and artistic contexts of eighteenth-century China. It begins by situating the discovery and representation of the Pei Cen Stele in the geopolitics of the Manchu empire. The stele was believed to be first found by the general Yue Zhongqi 岳鐘琪 (1686–1754) when he led Qing forces to fight against the Zunghar Mongols. Court officials and exiled scholars

4 For Ouyang’s collection of stone inscriptions, see Egan 1989: 371–379.5 For discussion on kaozheng scholarship, see Elman 1984: 38–56.

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framed the Pei Cen Stele in poems and imperial publications to propagandize the consolidation of Qing’s new frontier. The second episode analyses ink rub-bings of the Pei Cen Stele as the material evidence of collecting stone inscrip-tions. Through my close reading of colophons on these rubbings, I categorize four major types of copies of the Pei Cen Stele—re-engraving, authentic rub-bing, tracing copy, and forgery, all of which emerged because of the distant location of the monument. In addition, the exchange of these rubbings served as a crucial channel through which scholars and antiquarians commemorated meaningful relationships and developed specialized knowledge of epigraphy. The final section discusses the transitional style of the Pei Cen Stele through calligraphers’ innovative transcriptions. The stele epitomizes the crucial trans-formation from the seal script to the clerical script and its stylistic signifi-cance lies in the historicity of the monument. The noted eighteenth-century antiquarian Huang Yi 黃易 (1744–1801) interpreted this transitional style by highlighting the materiality of stone engraving. The scholar-official and cal-ligrapher Yi Bingshou 伊秉綬 (1754–1815) imagined the initial appearance of the inscription with his creative works of calligraphy. Each of these vignettes in the life of the Pei Cen Stele focuses on a distinctive context in which people interacted with the artefact. I argue that the collecting activities in the Qing dynasty were an inventive endeavour, through which collectors created the Pei Cen Stele as a symbol of prosperity, a relic of the Han dynasty, and a model of style.

1 Pei Cen Stele and the New Frontier

Issues related to the north-western frontier had always been a serious chal-lenge to rulers of imperial China. As early as the Han dynasty, armies were mobilized to the north-western region in response to threats from non-Han regimes of central Asia. The illustrious and legendary success of Huo Qubing 霍去病 (140–117 BCE), who defeated “foreign barbarians” to defend the Han empire, has long been a Confucian image of heroic loyalism regarding the bor-der of the homeland. The Great Wall of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) is also a constant reminder of the frontier. This continuous walled fortress marked the boundary between the Han regime and the world of foreigners of central Eurasia.

When the Manchu established their reign in 1644, the far west, now known as Xinjiang, was largely occupied by Zunghar Mongols. During the seven-teenth century, the Zunghar empire (1671–1760) had expansive control over



the northern side of the Kunlun Mountains, encompassing areas from Kashgar and Yarkand (west) to Hami (east). Political and economic conflicts between the Zunghar and the Qing surfaced in the late seventeenth century. Three generations of Qing emperors, Kangxi 康熙 (r. 1666–1722), Yongzheng 雍正 (r. 1722–1735), and Qianlong 乾隆 (r. 1735–1796), employed different political tactics against the Zunghar Mongols. In the 1690s, the Kangxi Emperor had led personal expeditions against Galdan (1644–1697), the leader of Zunghar, partly because Galdan’s troop continued moving eastwards and had become a threat to Beijing.6 The confrontation between Kangxi and Galdan was long and exhausting for both sides. The victory at the Battle of Jao Modo in 1696 and the death of Galdan in the next year marked an important success, although not the end, for the Manchu ruler. Tsewang Rabdan (r. 1697–1727), the nephew of Galdan, quickly assumed power and grew into the new leader of Zunghar. In 1715, the attack on Hami by Tsewang Rabdan triggered Kangxi to take further measures against the reappearing danger from the north-west. About sixty miles from Hami, a new supply base was set up at Barköl to prepare for the distant campaign into the western region. As suggested by Peter Perdue, the mobilization of armies towards the west had expanded “the Qing’s conception of its natural borders”.7 After the defeat of Tsewang Rabdan, Hami and Turfan were integrated into Qing territory.

1.1 The Discovery of the Pei Cen SteleThe Pei Cen Stele was believed to be discovered under the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor.8 During this period, the relationship with Zunghar started with peaceful diplomatic exchanges but soon turned to contentious confrontations. In 1729, Yongzheng announced military action against Galdan Tseren (r. 1727–1745), the new ruler of Zunghar, and vowed to exterminate these north-western rebellions.9 Yue Zhongqi, a descendant of the famed Song-dynasty loyalist Yue Fei 岳飛 (1103–1142), was made Generalissimo for Pacifying the Distant Frontier (Ningyuan daajiangjun 寧遠大將軍).10 Yue spent considerable time in Barköl to fortify the city and prepare his troops.

6 Spence 2002: 150–160.7 Perdue 2005: 230–231.8 Zhu Yuqi suggests that the earliest record of the Pei Cen Stele dates to 1715. However,

eighteenth-century scholars such as Huang Yi 黃易, Weng Fanggang 翁方綱, and Qian Daxin 錢大昕 all identified that this monument was unearthed in the Yongzheng period by Yue Zhongqi 岳鐘琪. For Zhu’s discussion, see Zhu Yuqi 2014: 31.

9 Ibid., 250–251.10 Ibid., 252.

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Later accounts often ascribe the discovery of the Pei Cen Stele to Yue’s stay in Barköl, during which the general relocated the Han monument to his of-fice, protecting it from further damage.11 However, no direct evidence suggests Yue’s involvement. To the best of my knowledge, the only occasion Yue men-tioned his encounter with the Pei Cen Stele was a poem describing the scener-ies of Tianshan 天山 (Mountains of Heaven) in Xinjiang. The line describes “Tang seal script left on precipitous cliffs / ruined stele commemorates the Han army”.12 The ‘Tang seal script’ is a metaphor for Jiang Xingben Stele 姜行本碑. In 610, Jiang Xingben 姜行本 (c. 610–645) had led armies to fight the king of Gaochang. After his success, Jiang ordered the carving of an inscription on Tianshan to commemorate his achievement. The ‘ruined Han stele’ refers to the Pei Cen Stele which was made to honour the merit of the Han general Pei Cen. Other than this brief description, Yue did not seem to have recounted his salvage of this ‘ruined’ monument in his extant writings, neither did he report this self-aggrandizing event in hundreds of his surviving memorials to the emperor. One may argue that the finding of an old stele was too trivial to acknowledge during a serious military mission. Nevertheless, Yue did commu-nicate details of his daily operations to the throne, including the proposal to build a local temple and the observation of an auspicious omen.13 If existing records about the discovery of the Pei Cen Stele are accurate, Yue could have, I think, intended to be reticent about this matter, because both the content of the Pei Cen Stele and his family identity were not entirely uncontroversial at the time. Celebrating the Han victory against the Xiongnu, a nomadic re-gime of the north, could have put the Manchu ruler in an awkward position. In addition, Yue Zhongqi’s distinguished family lineage from Yue Fei, who had fought the Jin (1115–1234) Jurchens, the ancestor of the Manchus, had already triggered rumours about his loyalty to the Qing regime.14 The specific details of this discovery and the exact mentality of Yue are hard to confirm without further evidence, but it is safe to say that the finding of the Pei Cen Stele was closely related to the Qing expansion into central Asia.

11 For example, Weng Fanggang credited Yue Zhongqi with discovering the Pei Cen Stele, see Weng Fanggang, Lianghan jinshi ji, 13: 668.

12 Xing Han discusses this poem in his book on Qing poetry of Xinjiang, see Xing Han 2009: 38–39. For the complete poem, see Yue Zhongqi, Yue Rongzhai shiji, 2: 502.

13 Yue’s surviving memorials is accessible in the Database of Ch’ing Palace Memorials and Archives of the Grand Council (Qingdai gongzhongdang zouzhe ji junjichu dangzhe jian 清代宮中檔奏摺及軍機處檔摺件), http://npmhost.npm.gov.tw/ttscgi/ttswebnpm? @0:0:1:npmmeta@@0.5599747148234111, accessed 31 October 2019. The accession num-bers for the memorial on the construction of a temple is 402000182, and the one about the auspicious omen is 402000171.

14 Zhao Erxun, Qingshi gao, 296: 10371.



The end of Yongzheng’s campaign was not very successful. In 1731, a trap set up by Galdan Tseren almost wiped out the entire Qing army.15 This devastating loss made Yongzheng abandon his ambitious plan of conquering the Zunghar state. The life of Yue was tragic after the campaign. The emperor jailed him due to multiple impeachments made by his Manchu colleagues about his alleged mistakes in the military operations and Yue did not regain prominence until the new emperor came to the throne.16

1.2 Celebrating the ConquestThe goal set by Yongzheng was eventually accomplished by his son, the Qianlong Emperor. With the death of Galdan Tseren in 1745, internecine con-flicts among his descendants arose. Qianlong seized this opportunity and de-clared his campaign by sending out two brigades to the frontier in 1755. The conquest of Zunghar took almost five years. At the end of 1759, Qianlong made the official proclamation that the Zunghar campaigns were fulfilled and the territory once overseen by the Zunghar Mongols was now integrated into the Great Qing Empire.17 Xinjiang, literally the ‘New Frontier’, was consolidated as a crucial part of Qing territory ever since then.

Following this grandiose conquest, Qianlong ordered that new maps be de-signed, military rituals conducted, paintings of important battle scenes pro-duced, and public monuments of war memorials constructed.18 These varied forms of celebration not only proclaimed sovereignty over the new territory but also framed the ways in which these campaigns should be remembered. Public monuments engraved with the history of the Zunghar campaigns prob-ably reached a wider audience than other formats of commemoration, which were only accessible to a limited class of people. Marking political authority in stone was nothing new to rulers of China. As early as the Qin dynasty (221–207 BCE), the First Emperor (259–210 BCE) had performed inspection tours after his unification of China and left carved inscriptions at sacred mountains.19 Yet Qianlong aimed to distinguish himself through the gigantic number of monu-ments he commissioned and the multi-ethnic audience he targeted. Hundreds of steles about the Zunghar campaigns were set up in new domains of Xinjiang

15 Perdue 2005: 253–255.16 Zhao Erxun, Qingshi gao, 296: 10375.17 Perdue 2005: 291.18 For the design of new maps, see Perdue 2005: 442–461; for the performance of mili-

tary rituals, production of paintings, and the construction of war memorials, see Waley-Cohen 1996: 887–891, 891–896, 873–887.

19 Harrist 2008: 222.

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and installed at a wide range of local temples across China.20 These war memo-rials were often written and carved in multiple languages, including Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan. For well-informed viewers at the time, war monuments of Qianlong stood in sharp contrast to earlier surviving examples, such as the Pei Cen Stele. The poem by Cao Linkai 曹麟開 (c. 1780s) captures a sentiment of this kind:

Carved monuments of Yonghe and Zhenguan are monumental.Looking at these broken steles, green moss seems to have sealed them off.How could they compare to the imperial inscription of pacifying Zunghar?Wind and cloud forever protect the Mount Gedeng.

永和貞觀碣重重，博望殘碑碧蘚封。

何似御銘平準績，風雲長護格登峰。21

A low-ranking magistrate of Huangmei county of Hubei Province, Cao was banished to Xinjiang in 1781 due to his involvement in a case of literary inqui-sition.22 In his poem, the carved monuments of Yonghe and Zhenguan refer to the Pei Cen Stele and Jiang Xingben Stele. The Pei Cen Stele was made in the sec-ond year of the Yonghe era of the Han dynasty (137) and Jiang Xingben Stele was erected in the fourteenth year of the Zhenguan era of the Tang dynasty (640). The last two lines of the poem point to the war memorial at Mount Gedeng, known as Stele of Pacifying Zunghar at Mt. Gedeng (Pingding Zhunge’er leiming Gedeng shan bei 平定准格爾勒銘格登山碑).23 Constructed in 1755, this stele is located at the current border between China and Kazakhstan. To the eyes of Cao, the two historical monuments were incomparable to the Qing imperial stele. In other words, Qianlong had accomplished much more than the great emperors of the Han and Tang dynasties, two of the golden ages in Chinese history. The Pei Cen Stele thus served as a precedent for the empire-wide spread of Zunghar steles. These multilingual inscriptions pronounced the universal power of the Qing regime and generated a sense of belonging for subjects of the country.

Qianlong was deeply aware of the implication of collecting antiques as trophies of his rule. In 1749, he ordered the production of catalogues of his

20 Waley-Cohen 1996: 873–887; Zhu Yuqi 2014: 397–411.21 Zhu Yuqi 2014: 398.22 Xing Han 2009: 65–66.23 Dai Liangzuo 2013: 328–340.



collection of ancient bronzes. The aim of this project, as stated by the emperor, was to contemplate history through the bronze vessels of past dynasties.24 In addition, ancient bronzes as symbols of virtue and legitimized rulership have long been emphasized in numerous Confucian classics.25 The dual purpose of collecting bronzes helped to portray Qianlong as a reflective ruler of Confucian merits. Completed in 1755, the first imperial catalogue of bronzes, Xiqing gu-jian 西清古鑑 (The Ancient Mirror of Western Clarity), emulates the layout of the Song imperial catalogue Xuanhe bogu tulu 宣和博古圖錄 (Xuanhe Period Illustrated Guide to Antiquity). It is interesting to note that Qiu Yuexiu 裘曰

修 (1712–1773), one of the chief editors of Xiqing gujian, was dispatched to Barköl to supervise military supplies in 1756 for Qianlong’s Zunghar campaign. According to Wang Chang 王昶 (1724–1806), Qiu had seen the Pei Cen Stele in person and brought rubbings back to Beijing.26 Fresh artefacts from the new territory might have provoked the emperor to expand his imperial collection. In 1781, Qianlong commissioned the production of Xiqing xujian 西清續鑑

(Sequel to The Mirror of Western Clarity), a supplement to the original Xiqing gujian. The project resulted in a two-album catalogue of nearly two thousand objects. As already discussed by Yu Hui-chun, the first album of the catalogue has a small appendix of thirty-eight metal objects, all of which were related to Qianlong’s military campaigns. Items in the appendix are not always tra-ditional bronze vessels but more like souvenirs of varied wars—iron seal of Zunghar, Torghut weapons, and commemorative coins—which all have clear indication of the conquest. The collection of these unusual pieces, as argued by Yu, signifies Qianlong’s intent to cast a new material history that evoked his unparalleled empire.27

1.3 Political RepresentationAssembling antiques from the frontier was, of course, a display of imperial authority and power but it also transcended the boundary between the mar-tial and the cultural. Grand cultural projects like Xiqing gujian, with support from the throne, invited educated elites to embrace the imperialistic expan-sion and to willingly celebrate the military success of the state. Initiated in 1773, Siku quanshu 四庫全書, or The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, was an imperial encyclopedia that aimed to collect, select, and edit important

24 Yu Hui-chun 2011: 152–153.25 For the relationship between bronzes and virtue, one can read Wu 1995: 4–9.26 Wang Chang, Jinshi cuibian, 7: 120.27 The above information is based on Yu’s discussion of this catalogue, see Yu Hui-chun 2011:

167–175, 187–189.

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surviving textual works.28 Ji Yun 紀昀 (1724–1805), one of the chief editors of Siku quanshu, used the Pei Cen Stele as a critical piece of evidence to educate Confucian scholars about the significance of Qing military expansion. In 1778, when composing his annotation to Dong Han wenji 東漢文紀 (Eastern Han Anthology) by Mei Dingzuo 梅鼎祚 (1549–1615), Ji wrote as follows:

The stele about Pei Cen’s victory against the King of the Huyan is in the distant western region. [Because of] our emperor’s heavenly power to pacify [the western region], Confucian scholars began to see its text. Dingzuo was born at the end of the Ming dynasty, a period of decline, during which the area beyond the Jiayu Pass was unreachable. His omis-sion thus should not be regarded as ignorance.

若夫永和裴岑破呼衍王碑，遠在西域。我皇上天威耆定，儒者始睹其

文。鼎祚生明季衰微之時，嘉峪關外，即為絕域。其略而不載，固未

可以為疏漏焉。29

As this was written for a court-patronized project, Ji’s line of reasoning was not surprising. By attributing the inadequacy of Mei’s work to the deterioration of the previous dynasty, Ji underscored the value of Qing’s military power for Confucian scholars. In his view, the Pei Cen Stele became available to him and his literati cohort only because of the annexation of Xinjiang. The re-collection of early stone engravings, in this line of logic, benefitted from the imperial ter-ritory acquisition in the eighteenth century.

Ji also worked as a chief editor in another contemporaneous book project patronized by the throne. In 1767, Qianlong issued an edict to supplement Tongzhi 通志, or General History of Institutions, by Zheng Qiao 鄭樵 (1104–1162), a highly-regarded monograph on the institutional history of China. Xu Tongzhi 續通志, or the Sequel to the General History of Institutions, was com-pleted in 1785, which includes political events, influential policies, critical figures, and new materials in the post-Song periods. Tongzhi has one volume for stone inscriptions, because, according to Zheng Qiao, these engraved texts lived longer than other textual forms and should be considered as the origi-nal document of history.30 Xu Tongzhi expanded this epigraphic section into four volumes, adding inscriptions left out by Zheng, texts made after the time of Zheng, and steles discovered only recently. In his preface to the section on

28 Guy 1987: 67–69.29 Ji Yun and Yongrong, Siku quanshu zongmu, 189: 1720–1721.30 Zheng Qiao, Tongzhi, 73: 841.



stone inscriptions, Ji employed a highly celebratory tone to frame this scholarly project in the Qing military expansion, highlighting the collection of ancient inscriptions at Barköl during the eighteenth century, namely the Pei Cen Stele and Jiang Xingben Stele.31 The sentiment here is similar to what Ji commented on Dong Han wenji earlier. The conquest of Xinjiang enabled scholars to study materials in north-western China, which could never be achieved by the ‘weak’ government of the Song. Many scholars have already pointed out the desire of Qianlong to represent himself as an exceptional ruler of both militancy and culture.32 The repetition of this kind of narrative must have meant pronounc-ing the significance of military campaigns to the scholar community of Qing China. And the Qing discovery of the Pei Cen Stele functioned as key evidence to such political propaganda.

Ji’s personal experience with the new frontier also plays a role in the politi-cal framing of the Pei Cen Stele in the imperial projects. Banished to Xinjiang in 1768 due to his involvement in a serious case of corruption, Ji wrote one hundred and sixty poems on the road, known as Wulumuqi zashi 烏魯木齊

雜詩 (Miscellaneous Poems of Urümqi), to express his first-hand impressions of Xinjiang.33 As suggested by Perdue, these poems construct an image of the invigorating environment of Xinjiang since the conquest, which sharply con-tradicts the representation of the western frontier as barren and depressed in the early poetry tradition.34 Ji did not seem to suffer from the exile but was genuinely exhilarated by the bustling city life, natural landscapes, and exotic customs of the new land. With the emperor’s pardon in 1770, Ji returned to the capital and regained eminent positions at the court. Ji’s original feeling of the north-west deeply shaped his perception of the Pei Cen Stele, a monument he had encountered during his brief exile.35 The ancient Han stele was a symbol of the prosperity of the Manchu regime in the eyes of Ji.

Whether in imperial projects or private notes, the complimentary voice regarding the collection of the Pei Cen Stele was ubiquitous among Qing lite-rati. As a prominent intellectual at the capital, Ji’s positive impression about

31 Mei Yun-chiu has translated the preface in her dissertation, see Mei 2008: 30. For the original text, see Xu Tongzhi, 167: 4253.

32 Alexander Woodside has noted Qianlong’s use of Chinese culture to consolidate his rule, see Woodside 2002: 237. Another example is Kristina Kleutghen’s discussion of Qianlong’s self-representation in court paintings, see Kleutghen 2015: 147–177.

33 Waley-Cohen 1991: 4–8, 140–144. For the collection of Ji Yun’s poems about Xinjiang, see Ji Yun 1967.

34 Perdue 2005: 428–429.35 Ji mentioned the Pei Cen Stele in his extant writings, see Ji Yun, Yuewei caotang biji, 8: 171

and 10: 221. Huang Yi also indicated that Ji at least owned a copy of the Pei Cen Stele in Album A.

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the things he experienced in Xinjiang must have inspired his literati audience about the unequivocal success of the Qing state. Qian Daxin 錢大昕 (1728–1804), perhaps the most venerated kaozheng scholar of the Qianlong period, chose to include a political comment on the Pei Cen Stele in his personal colo-phon to the inscription. Qian obtained his jinshi degree in 1754, the same year as Ji Yun. In his scholarly notes, Qian began by examining the textual content of the Pei Cen Stele and concluded that the achievement of Pei Cen “was minor and not worth mentioning” in view of the immense domain of the current Qing empire.36 The first-hand experience of Xinjiang brought back by travel-lers, either having been exiled or on official duty, contributed to the creation of a uniform narrative about the discovery of the Pei Cen Stele. The ancient Han monument became a fixed footnote to the empire history of eighteenth-century China and inform later generations of literati to remember the tri-umph of Qing military expansion.

2 Rubbings of the Pei Cen Stele

Ink rubbing was the major material evidence for the collecting activities of stone inscriptions in late imperial China. The collection of an engraved monu-ment, in most cases, does not mean the possession of the real object but a reproduction of it through ink rubbing. The production of ink rubbing begins by attaching a piece of paper on the stone and then tamping the paper sur-face with an inked pad. Characters would then appear in white against the dark background. The physical interaction between the paper and the original monument was meaningful to collectors because it accentuates the faithful-ness of the reproduction, not as an index to the carved stele, but as an authen-tic copy of the original.37 The quality of an ink rubbing depends on the skill of its maker. Competent artisans were commissioned to produce ink rubbings, and sometimes scholars would visit the monument in person and produce im-ages of rubbings by their own hands.38 This variable process determines the quality of the final product. Fine rubbings are not merely reproductions of monuments but desirable collectibles of social, cultural, and monetary value.

36 Qian Daxin, Qianyan tang jinshi wen bawei, 1: 132.37 A similar point is noted by Wu Hung in his comparison between rubbing, printing, and

photography, see Wu 2003: 29–30.38 Bai Qianshen has briefly discussed the interactions between Wu Dacheng (1835–1902)

and artisans who made ink rubbings for a living, see, Bai Qianshen 2013: 31–52.



The circulation of ink rubbings in the Qing dynasty served an important venue through which collectors commemorated meaningful relationships and formulated epigraphic knowledge. Texts added to these images often memori-alize from which the rubbing was acquired, thus delineating the social trajec-tory of the object. Scholarly notes about these black-and-white images involve in-depth discussions of issues such as history, palaeography, and style. Qing epigraphic scholars were also connoisseurs of these collectibles. By looking at and comparing different versions of ink rubbings, they tried to discern if the product was truly faithful, poorly done, or manipulated. Careful analysis of colophons on the rubbings therefore reveals an intricate network of social relations and showcases the process through which the discourse of epigraphy took shape and was amplified.

Huang Yi was an important collector of the Pei Cen Stele in the eighteenth century because four extant rubbings of the monument are believed to be once owned by him.39

table 1 Ink rubbings of the Pei Cen Stele collected by Huang Yi

Title Recent Provenance Date Collection

Album A Liang Qichao 梁啟超

(1873–1929)c. 1779 National Library of China

Album B Unknown undated Beijing Palace MuseumAlbum C Uno Sesson 宇野雪村

(1912–1995)c. 1757 Beijing Palace Museum

Album D Zhu Yian 朱翼盦 (1882–1937) undated Beijing Palace Museum

Born in Zhejiang in 1744, Huang Yi grew up in the period when the Qing ter-ritory was actively expanded and consolidated. He gained fame as a resource-ful epigraphist through his restoration of Han monuments and his pilgrimage to carved inscriptions. During his official post in Shandong, the birthplace of Confucianism, Huang restored the Wu Liang Shrine 武梁祠 and relocated im-portant Han steles to the local Confucian academy. Late in his life, Huang trav-elled in Henan to examine important stone inscriptions in situ. His personal

39 Album A is reproduced in Beijing tushuguan chubanshe, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 97–146. Albums B, C, and D are printed in Gugong bowuyuan, Penglai suyue: Gugong cang Huang Yi Han Wei beike teji, 70–79. Album D is also catalogued in Zhu Yian 2006: 38–43.

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visits to the early monuments of Luoyang and Mount Song are crystalized in his diary and paintings. Huang generously shared his rubbings with his schol-arly peers. Weng Fanggang 翁方綱 (1733–1818), one of the cultural leaders for the circle of antiquarians in eighteenth-century China, frequently exchanged rubbings and opinions with Huang to update their shared knowledge of stone inscriptions.40

These four surviving rubbings of the Pei Cen Stele elucidate the complex enterprise of copy production in Qing China, the significant relationship be-tween Huang Yi and his brother, and the palaeographic debate regarding the stele. The distant location of the Pei Cen Stele had made it difficult for collec-tors of the eighteenth century to acquire its rubbings. As a result, varied copies of the Pei Cen Stele were made to transmit knowledge of the inscription, to pre-serve the original stone engraving, or to trick people for monetary gains. Being able to identify the original stele and possess its authentic rubbing was a sign of erudition, social resource, and cultural capital. After close-reading the var-ied colophons on these albums, I identify four major types among the copies of the Pei Cen Stele. Rubbings tamped from the original stone were the major but not the only copy of the monument. More important, the re-engravings of the Pei Cen Stele on stone and woodblock generate a new series of rubbings. Hand-tracing copies were also made after reliable rubbings of the Pei Cen Stele. These multiple categories of reproduction levelled obstacles for collectors to discern the truthful image of the Pei Cen Stele, and inspire us to reconsider the meaning of authenticity at the time.

2.1 Types of Copies2.1.1 Re-engravingNot long after the discovery of the Pei Cen Stele, a facsimile of the inscription was made to sustain the large demand for its rubbings. I use the term ‘facsimile’ to denote the re-engraving of the Pei Cen Stele in Barköl, which was intended as an exact copy of the original stone on the woodblock. The facsimile of the Pei Cen Stele not only reproduces the text and style of the inscription but also rec-reates the aged look of the stone surface. This kind of facsimile aims to deceive collectors of the authenticity of the rubbing imprinted from it.

40 For Huang Yi’s role in the restoration of the Wu Liang Shrine, see Tseng 2008: 260–283. Tseng also discusses Huang Yi’s painting about his journey to Henan, see Tseng 2003: 42–46. Huang Yi’s research on Han steles of Shandong has been carefully examined by Lu Hui-wen, see Lu 2009: 53–60. Bai Qianshen analyses the social circle of Huang Yi in the eighteenth century, see Bai Qianshen 2008: 289–295.



The first rubbing in Album A is an example of such a facsimile.41 Huang Yi’s colophon of 1779, now damaged and missing one-third of the text, identifies that this rubbing was made from a facsimile of the Pei Cen Stele at the mili-tary base of Barköl. As noted by Ji Yun, in 1770 a certain Mr Liu carved a copy of the Pei Cen Stele on woodblock and burned the surface with gunpowder to make his creation look eroded.42 Huang relied on Ji’s knowledge about this facsimile to establish the identity of the first rubbing. The woodblock copy in Barköl indicates the thriving market for the rubbing of the Pei Cen Stele and the challenging accessibility to the original monument in the eighteenth cen-tury. In addition, this facsimile of Pei Cen Stele was considered a counterfeit at the time because it aimed to mislead collectors and scholars. As warned by both Ji and Weng, because the facsimile appears abraded and also originated from Barköl, one cannot assume the authenticity of the rubbing based on its antique appearance or its frontier provenance.43 Knowing its dubiousness but feeling constrained that the stele was too far to reach in person, Huang Yi kept this rubbing, not as a genuine image of the Pei Cen Stele, but as a facsimile of the original stone.

Engraved replicas of the Pei Cen Stele also surfaced in other parts of China in the latter half of the eighteenth century. I address this kind of re-engraving as ‘replicas’ because, unlike the facsimile of Barköl, they only duplicated the con-tent and style of the inscription and did not mean to replace or be construed as the original. Gu Wenhong 顧文鉷 (c. eighteenth century) carved a copy of the Pei Cen Stele in Jining, Shandong Province.44 Shen Zhaoding 申兆定 (c. 1762) also re-engraved the inscription on stone at the Forest of Steles in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province.45 Their re-engravings of the Pei Cen Stele aimed to dissemi-nate the historical and stylistic values of the original monument. In his dis-cussion of the myriad copies of Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (303–361), Robert Harrist uses the term “bona fide copy” to indicate a type of replication for “study or aesthetic pleasure or to display the skill of the copyist”.46 The re-engravings of the Pei Cen Stele at Jining and Xi’an fall into this category and can be un-derstood as bona fide replicas, designed to showcase stylistic features of the carving, historical significance of the inscription, and epigraphic competence of Gu and Shen.

41 Beijing tushuguan, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 106–115.42 Ji Yun, Yuewei caotang biji, 10: 221.43 Ji Yun, Yuewei caotang biji, 10: 221; Weng Fanggang, Lianghan jinshi ji, 13: 668.44 Weng Fanggang, Lianghan jinshi ji, 14: 669.45 Wang Chang, Jinshi cuibian, 7: 120–121.46 Harrist 2004: 34.

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2.1.2 Authentic RubbingAn ink rubbing imprinted directly from the Pei Cen Stele is an authentic copy of the monument because the close interaction with the stone surface allows the rubbing image to faithfully capture text, style, and condition of the inscrip-tion. The second rubbing in Album A and the rubbing of Album C are examples of authentic copy. Huang Yi informs us in his colophon of 1780 that the sec-ond rubbing of Album A was purchased by his elder brother Huang Ting 黃庭

(1729–1780) in Urümqi, who claimed it to be made from the original stone.47 For Album C, Huang Yi identifies the rubbing as a gift from Weng in 1794, who asserted that the rubbing was acquired by Qiu Yuexiu in 1757 during his official mission to Xinjiang.48 This hearsay evidence makes it impossible to verify the exact source of these two rubbings, but at least they were viewed as the au-thentic rubbings by noted scholars of the eighteenth century. Compared with the rubbing of the facsimile, characters in these authentic rubbings appear more fragmented and the stone surface features uneven scratches of damage.

Despite being authentic, these rubbings can still be judged as poor quality if the person who produced the image lacked skill. Huang Yi complained about the quality of Album C because the ink tonality of the rubbing is inconsistent, suggesting that the maker was not able to apply stable pressure when tamping the paper surface. Weng also noted that even authentic rubbings of the Pei Cen Stele could look different from each other because craftsmen in Barköl might not be skilful enough to maintain identical quality.49 An authentic rubbing was the most desired copy of the Pei Cen Stele in Qing China. However, like other collectibles in pre-modern elite culture such as painting, calligraphy, and bronzes, the standard of authenticity is largely determined by the provenance, a mechanism of verification that mainly operates upon hearsay.

2.1.3 Shuanggou CopyUsing authentic rubbings, Qing epigraphic scholars produced shuanggou 雙鉤 copies of stone inscription to create lost stone inscriptions, or to document steles before they vanished from natural damage. Shuanggou, or “double out-line”, refers to an age-old technique of reproducing handwritten calligraphy.50 The procedure of shuanggou is similar to the production of an ink rubbing that begins by placing a layer of thin paper above the original work. A copyist

47 Beijing tushuguan, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 126.48 Gugong bowuyuan, Penglai suyue: Gugong cang Huang Yi Han Wei beike teji, 76–78.49 Weng Fanggang, Lianghan jinshi ji, 14: 668.50 The account of shuanggou technique derives from Fu Shen’s and Robert Harrist’s works,

see Fu 1977: 3; Harrist 2004: 47.



then precisely traces the silhouettes of each character with delicate lines. In early cases, the copyist often follows with another step known as motian 墨填/tianmo 填墨, or “to fill in with ink”, during which the outlined characters are charged with ink to present a striking resemblance to the handwritten work. The complete process is called shuanggou motian, or “double outline and ink fill-in”. This tradition started with handwritten calligraphy and implies a strict semblance with the original artist’s hand. However, the shuanggou copy of a stone inscription does not mean to trace characters on the original monument but after reliable ink rubbings. In addition, the term shuanggou became quite flexible in the eighteenth century. In 1789, Weng made a tracing copy of Stele of Mt. Hua 華山碑 by synthesizing three rubbings of distinguished provenanc-es.51 Destroyed in an earthquake of 1552, this stele existed only in early records and rubbings. Weng therefore aimed to recover the appearance of the stele through his shuanggou copy. Although outlined characters are inked in this copy, Gui Fu 桂馥 (1736–1805), who viewed this work in 1790, referred to it as a shuanggou copy. In other cases, shuanggou can also denote outlined copies that are not filled in with ink. In his Xiaopenglai ge jinshi wenzi 小蓬萊閣金石

文字 (Engraved Texts of the Lesser Penglai Pavilion), Huang Yi indicated that he employed the shuanggou method to preserve eleven fragmented monu-ments.52 In his copies, characters, blank in their bodies, resemble the effect of an ink rubbing in which shapes of characters are shown in white.

Shuanggou copies made by renowned scholars were also used to support the authenticity of ink rubbings. According to Huang Yi, Ji Yun had made a shuang-gou copy of the Pei Cen Stele with the authentic rubbing he acquired during his exile.53 Moreover, Huang Yi compared the second rubbing in Album A with Ji’s shuanggou copy to further confirm the authenticity of his brother’s acquisi-tion. After his close examination, Huang concluded that this rubbing corre-sponded with Ji’s shuanggou copy and its authenticity was thus beyond doubt. As I have shown, copying stone inscriptions through the shuanggou method in the eighteenth century was an inventive replication. However, the term’s im-plication of verisimilitude continued to weigh in. The fact that Huang chose to

51 This hanging scroll and its colophons are accessible in the digital database of the Taipei National Palace Museum, see http://painting.npm.gov.tw/Painting_Page.aspx?dep=P&PaintingId=34309, accessed 31 October 2019.

52 Michael Hatch discusses Huang Yi’s shuanggou copies of famed stone inscriptions in his dissertation, see Hatch 2015: 107–114. For Huang Yi’s copies, see Huang Yi, Xiaopenglai ge jinshi wenzi, 529–650.

53 Beijing tushuguan, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 126. In another work by Huang Yi at Wu Xi Museum, he also mentioned that Ji had produced shuanggou copies of the Pei Cen Stele. For a reproduction of the work, see Xue Longchun 2019: 38.

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compare his rubbing with a shuanggou work demonstrates the authority of the tracing copy executed by the hands of a knowledgeable scholar. Ji’s close con-nection with Xinjiang and the Pei Cen Stele must have accredited his shuang-gou copy with authenticity and reliability. However, the process through which copies were made after copies had made “the discovery of truth” a tantalizing and inventive enterprise for epigraphic scholars in late imperial China.

2.1.4 ForgeryForgery here refers to rubbing albums with forged colophons. As we discussed earlier, the authenticity of a rubbing is influenced by the provenance as articu-lated in the colophons by scholars and collectors. Like the facsimile of Pei Cen Stele in Barköl, the forgery was intended to be falsified as something which it is not. Yet, as forged texts only persuade collectors to believe but not to de-cide the truthfulness of the product, the real identity of the rubbing framed by fake colophons require independent investigations. Album B is likely to be a forgery because it bears some identical colophons with Album A. For instance, the colophon and the seal of Kong Jihan 孔繼涵 (1739–1783) is the same on both albums. Zhu Qi has observed this unusual coincidence and identifies that Kong’s colophon on Album B was probably traced after the one on Album A.54

I would like to add that this kind of forgery is common among rubbings of distinguished provenance. The allegedly Ming-dynasty rubbing of Zhang Qian Stele 張遷碑 at the Beijing Palace Museum (BPM) bears the inscription of Gui Fu. Another rubbing of the same stele, which was sold at Wenwu shangdian (Antique Company) of Beijing during the 1990s, also has the same colophon. Japanese scholar Itō Shigeru 伊藤滋 has pointed out that the colophon on the BPM rubbing is executed on a semi-transparent wax paper, a special medium designed for tracing copies. In addition, his close examination of the object in person shows that some characters in the rubbing of the BPM have been fixed with ink to create an anachronistic appearance. He thus concludes that the BPM rubbing should be a forgery imitating the one later auctioned in Beijing.55 I believe a similar scenario may have occurred with the twin rubbings of Pei Cen Stele but when and how Album B was produced remains unclear at this point.

54 Zhu Qi 2015: 128–130.55 Itō Shigeru 2001: 145–152. Shi Anchang, a noted researcher at the Beijing Palace Museum,

disagrees with Itō on the issue. He believes that collectors often transcribed important colophons for study purposes and did not mean to deceive others. For his reasoning, see Shi Anchang 2017: 39–49.



2.2 Memento of BrotherhoodRubbings also function as a platform on which collectors commemorated meaningful relationships. Album A is a memento symbolizing Huang Yi’s sin-cere emotion about Huang Ting. Huang Yi had never been to Xinjiang and his access to Pei Cen Stele was mainly achieved through his elder brother. As recounted on Album A, Huang Yi had craved for an authentic rubbing of Pei Cen Stele for more than ten years and he greatly cherished the one sent by his brother in 1780.56 As Huang Ting was about to return from Xinjiang the next year, Huang Yi expected to enjoy this precious object with his brother upon their reunion. Zhu Qi’s meticulous research on the Huang brothers provides a contextual reading for this colophon.57 As the eldest son, Huang Ting began to support his family at an early age. In 1765, he was banished to Xinjiang prob-ably due to his involvement in the miscarriage of justice by officials in Hubei.58 After that, Huang Yi exhausted his social resources to raise money to pay for the substantial fine his brother owed. In 1780, Huang Ting was granted release from his banishment; however, unfortunately, he suddenly died at the frontier before he could return. The reunion Huang Yi aspired to was never achieved. Huang’s desire for an authentic rubbing of Pei Cen Stele was thus symbolic of his longing for the return of his brother.

The personal significance of Album A to Huang Yi can also be glimpsed from another colophon by Li Dongqi 李東琪 (c. 1750s–1790s) in 1780.59 Li was an important epigraphic scholar of Shandong and a close friend of Huang Yi. In his inscription, Li expressed his exhilaration of finally seeing a rubbing of Pei Cen Stele through Huang Yi, something he had dreamed about for almost thirty years. Huang was always generous with Li in terms of sharing epigraphic ma-terials, but in the case of Pei Cen Stele Huang did not gift him one until almost fifteen years later in 1794.60 The rubbing given by Huang Ting was, I think, too meaningful for Huang Yi to share with others. The colophons by Huang and Li thus transformed Album A into a memorial to Huang Ting. Subsequent owners of this album were nonetheless reminded by these texts of the role Huang Ting played in assisting Huang Yi in acquiring the rubbing of Pei Cen Stele. Events related to a collector’s personal life became a part of the archive from which viewers can withdraw meanings about the Pei Cen Stele. This kind of remem-brance stands in contrast with the political representation of Pei Cen Stele in

56 Beijing tushuguan, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 126.57 Zhu Qi 2015: 125–151.58 Ibid., 133–134.59 Beijing tushuguan, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 127.60 Huang Yi’s colophon on Album C suggests that he gave Li Dongqi a rubbing of the Pei Cen

Stele in 1794.

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imperial projects, featuring intimate connections between a living person and the object.

2.3 Controversial CharacterThe identification of characters in carved inscriptions is the core of epigraphy because the meaning of the text relies on accurate transcription. The text of Pei Cen Stele is not without controversy. Reviewing how scholars discussed the issue gives an idea about the approach and emphasis of Qing epigraphic study.

The second character in the final line of Pei Cen Stele is extremely blurry due to heavy erosion. According to Huang Yi, Ji identified the character as de 德

(virtue) in his shuanggou copy to better fit the meaning of the sentence. The phrase lide ci 立德祠, meaning “to establish a shrine of virtue”, corresponds to the content of a commemorative inscription for Pei Cen’s merit. However, Huang thought this character, as shown in the authentic rubbing, looks more like hai 海 (grand lake) but was unable to explain the meaning of lihai ci 立海祠 or “to establish a shrine at the grand lake”. Kong Jihan, a friend of Huang and an important scholar of epigraphy in Shandong, was invited to look at this rubbing and discuss the problem. After months of research, Kong left a lengthy colophon on Album A in the summer of 1783.61 His inscription is a stan-dard scholarly note that focuses on the history and palaeography of Pei Cen Stele. Kong compared Pei Cen’s undocumented success with related historical documents and suggested possible scenarios of the battle. In the second half of his inscription, Kong agreed with Huang’s observation and used historical gazetteers to propose a semantic explanation. Relating the character hai to a specific geography near Barköl, where one can observe mirage at a grand lake, Kong suggested that the phrase lihai ci was meant to denote the initial locale of Pei Cen Stele. Modern scholarship supports this identification.62 However, the divergent interpretations about this character were heatedly debated and even became a crucial point of connoisseurship. The rubbing of the facsimile in Album A presents the ambiguous character as de (Figure 1), indicating the prevalence of Ji’s opinion. Agreeing with Ji, Weng despised rubbings and cop-ies that do not present the character as de.63 In the second rubbing of Album A, however, the fragmented trace of the character is much closer to hai (Figure 2). The physical trace of the character had convinced scholars such as Huang and Kong to reconsider the predominant identification. The formation and dispute of epigraphic knowledge were determined not only by access to the original artefact but also the interpretative excavation of historical sources.

61 Beijing tushuguan, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 128–9.62 Gao Wen 1997: 60.63 Weng Fanggang, Lianghan jinshi ji, 13: 669.



figure 2 Ink rubbing of the Pei Cen Stele in Album A, c. 1779, 38.5 × 21.5 cm. Character de 德 and character ci 祠 are the first two characters in the right-hand columnImage credit: Beijing tushuguan, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 125

figure 1 Ink rubbing of a facsimile of the Pei Cen Stele in Album A, c. 1779, 38.5 × 21.5 cm. Character de 德 and character ci 祠 are the first two characters in the right-hand columnImage credit: Beijing tushuguan, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 115

The rubbings of the Pei Cen Stele draw out a web of discourses formulated through collecting behaviours in the eighteenth century. The copies of the Pei Cen Stele were living objects in their own right, which were fabricated to rein-force the stature and the aura of the original work.64 Colophons next to these rubbings reinforced the narrative of the Pei Cen Stele that had already been told in Qing catalogues of stone inscriptions. Ji Yun and Qiu Yuexiu, among other figures, are anchored to the history of the Pei Cen Stele. These added texts also tell personal stories related to different collectors. The co-existence

64 A similar point is noted by Harrist, see Harrist 2004: 49–50.

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of authentic, facsimile, replica, shuanggou copy, and forgery has made the au-thentic image of the Pei Cen Stele become less concrete. The rubbing imprinted from the original stone is and will always be an ideal. Re-engravings made not long after the discovery seem more accessible. Tracing copies after authentic rubbings also emerged across China. As we have seen, the rubbing album once collected by Huang Yi was also duplicated. In a world of countless substitu-tions, the boundary between genuine and fake becomes fluid. The authentic-ity of the Pei Cen Stele was imagined and reinvented in the transmission of its copies and the words of scholars.

3 Style of the Pei Cen Stele

The style of the Pei Cen Stele intrigued epigraphists and calligraphers of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries because it epitomizes a crucial transi-tion in the history of Chinese writing. This transitional style is invaluable be-cause it exemplifies the development from the seal script to the clerical script, filling in the gap in our understanding of the evolution of early script types. Generally, the seal script features a complex character composition, vertically elongated shape, and round, unmodulated brushstroke. The clerical script employs simplified configuration of characters, horizontally elongated com-position, and wavy brushstroke. These two ancient script types have different temporal references. Developed earlier, seal script was most used in the pre-Han periods. Clerical script matured later and is seen more on Han-dynasty monuments. As an Eastern Han (25–220) inscription at the frontier of China, the Pei Cen Stele preserves characteristics of both script types. Its font shape ap-pears vertically elongated, but its layout of strokes is much abridged. Because engraved calligraphy on stone monuments such as the Pei Cen Stele was con-sidered genuine styles of the past in the Qing dynasty, eighteenth-century cal-ligraphers were encouraged to interpret them with their creative brushwork.

3.1 Identifying the Transitional StyleThe stylistic trait of the Pei Cen Stele was first noticed by Niu Yunzhen 牛運

震 (1706–1758) in Jinshi tu 金石圖 (Illustrations of Bronzes and Stones). He characterized the stele as “using methods of the seal script for the making of the clerical script”.65 Accompanying Niu’s commentary is a small illustration of the Pei Cen Stele that depicts its triangle shape and arrangement of charac-ters (Figure 3). Jinshi tu was an updated version of Jinshi jingyan lu 金石經眼錄

65 Niu Yunzhen and Chu Jun, Jinshi tu, 1: 60–1.



(Record of Viewing Bronzes and Stones), a project first initiated by Chu Jun褚峻

(fl. 1735–1745) around 1735. In both catalogues, Chu was believed to be respon-sible for drawing illustrations of stone inscriptions while Niu was the author of annotations.66 The miniatured pictures of carved inscriptions are intended to describe their current conditions for readers as if they were looking at the real stele. The knowledge about the physical state of monuments, as stated by Chu, derives from his field trips to their erected locations.67 However, neither Chu nor Niu had been to Xinjiang and their knowledge of the Pei Cen Stele are likely based upon rubbings and secondary scholarship.

The Pei Cen Stele is absent from Jinshi jingyan lu but among the additions made in Jinshi tu. Ji Yun had criticized the representation of the Pei Cen Stele in the new edition. In his view, the illustration of the Pei Cen Stele in Jinshi tu lacks

66 However, Tseng thought this was not a collaborated project because the preface does not include Niu Yunzhen. For her reasoning, see Tseng 2010: 255–256. On the other hand, Ji Yun indicated that the first project was co-authored by Niu and Chu, see Ji Yun and Yongrong, Siku quanshu zongmu, 86: 743.

67 Niu Yunzhen and Chu Jun, Jinshi jingyan lu, 1: 1–2; Niu Yunzhen and Chu Jun, Jinshi tu, 1: 9–10.

figure 3 Drawing of the Pei Cen Stele in Jinshi tu, 1745, original size unknownImage credit: Niu Yunzhen and Chu Jun, Jinshi tu, 1: seq. 32. Reproduced by the Harvard-Yenching Library, https://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4910123?n=32, accessed 21 July 2020

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verisimilitude because Niu could only use a fuzzy rubbing as the source.68 One of the inaccurate elements in the reduced image, as pointed out by Ji, is the controversial character that has been discussed in the previous section. Jinshi tu presents the character as hai; however, Ji firmly believed it should be de. As a result, Ji decided to exclude Jinshi tu and use Jinshi jinyan lu for the Siku quanshu project. Ji’s first-hand experience with Xinjiang and the Pei Cen Stele might have given him the confidence to make such a claim and decision.

Despite the exclusion from the imperial encyclopedia, the idea that the Pei Cen Stele represents a transitional style was agreed upon among epigraphic scholars of the eighteenth century. Referring to Niu’s commentary, Weng Fanggang articulated this stylistic character as follows:

Niu Zhengu (Yunzhen) says: this stele used [the method of] the seal script to make clerical script. Yet, during the transformation from the seal script to the clerical script, many Han steles are like this. Among the characters that include the element kou, those show the square with a bend should be the authentic version. If the element kou appears as a circle, then it is not the authentic version.

牛真谷云:「是碑以篆為隸」。然是由篆變隸之漸，漢碑多如此。其

字中凡遇口字皆方中帶圓者，乃是真本。若其口字竟似圓圈者則非真

本。69

Weng here identified that the style of the Pei Cen Stele should be square enough to look like the clerical script but should also entail minor traces of the circular shape that can be associated with the seal script. Using the element kou 口 as an example, Weng believed that the authentic style should be a square with slight curves. In the clerical script, kou is often written as a square or rectangle, while in the seal script it is often executed as a circle or oval. In the eyes of Weng, if kou is composed as a circle, then the style, far from being accurate to the original carving, should be inauthentic. This point of view can be ex-plained by looking at the character ci 祠 in rubbings of Album A. The element kou in character ci is represented as a ring shape in the facsimile (Figure 1). On the authentic rubbing, one can tell that kou is similar to a rectangle with four corners slightly curved (Figure 2).

68 For Ji’s comments on these two projects, see Ji Yun and Yongrong, Siku quanshu zongmu, 86: 743 and 87: 750.

69 Weng Fanggang, Lianghan jinshi ji, 14: 668–669.



3.2 Significance of the StyleWhy was Weng so keen on identifying the authentic transitional style of the Pei Cen Stele? Besides its historical value in showcasing the transformation of early scripts, the multiple copies of the Pei Cen Stele certainly demanded that schol-ars distinguish the original and superior from the inferior ones. More impor-tant, however, the authentic style of the Pei Cen Stele signifies a genuine sample of calligraphy that had not been touched or manipulated in the thousand years of its history. The rise of evidential scholarship in the seventeenth century ad-vocated the authentication and reconstruction of historical texts through the study of epigraphy.70 Stone inscriptions therefore functioned as the primary, uncorrupted material that helped verify and recover Confucian classics and recorded histories.

The importance of carved texts as authentic documents also had an impact on artistic culture. As early as the twelfth century, educated elites were aware of the defects of the Two Wang tradition or the classical model of Chinese callig-raphy.71 Because the works of Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi 王獻之 (344–386) were mainly transmitted through the medium of model-letter books, the origi-nal appearance of their brushwork had become lost in the numerous circles of re-carving and reprinting. Engraved calligraphy on stone monuments was an alternative model that represents the truthful style of the past.72 In addition, steles that were found in recent times had a special appeal to calligraphers. For example, excavated in the late sixteenth century, the fresh quality of Cao Quan Stele 曹全碑 enabled the precise exhibition of brushwork and was thus widely admired.73 When the Pei Cen Stele was first discovered in the eighteenth century, Ji Yun also noted that the brushstroke and the outline of characters were quite complete because historically no one had made a rubbing from the monument.74 The authentic style of the Pei Cen Stele was invaluable because of its validity as a fresh, complete, and original sample of art.

3.3 Innovative TranscriptionThe historicity of the Pei Cen Stele allured calligraphers of the eighteenth cen-tury to collect its style in their practices of innovative transcription. Lin 臨,

70 Bai Qianshen 2003: 159; Elman 1984: 68.71 Lothar Ledderose uses the classical tradition to denote the style of Wang Xizhi and

Wang Xianzhi, which had been influential in the history of Chinese for centuries, see Ledderose 1979: 24–44. In the section, he also discusses the defects of the classical tradition.

72 The point is noted by Amy McNair, see McNair 1995: 113–114.73 Xue Longchun 2007: 4–6.74 Ji Yun, Yuewei caotang biji, 10: 221.

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literally “to copy”, is the Chinese term that denotes this type of artistic creation. The discourse of lin in Chinese calligraphy has been discussed by many scholars. As noted by Bai Qianshen, the act of lin in Chinese calligraphy is an inventive platform on which calligraphers can perform their perception and knowledge about the model.75 The term “innovative transcription”, as coined by Katharine Burnett, highlights major features of this artistic creation.76 While transcrib-ing parts of the text, if not all of the text, calligraphers aim to transform the style of the model with an aesthetically different composition of brushstrokes. Amy McNair compares the innovative transcription of established calligraphy exemplars as “musical compositions that can be played many ways”.77 Their explanations underscore lin as an interpretive production, during which artists intend to use the text of a calligraphy piece to express their own aesthetic ideas about the visual features of the original work. I did not categorize the innova-tive transcription of the Pei Cen Stele as a type of copy in the discussion of its rubbings mainly because it does not aim to objectively represent the look of the stone inscription but to deliver an artist’s subjective vision of the engraved text. The four types of copies, as I outlined in the previous section, were con-structed to maintain the characteristics of the Pei Cen Stele. From its inception, innovative transcription, on the other hand, was meant to transcend the style of the inscription.

Using dry, trembling, and sometimes fluctuating brushwork, Huang Yi recre-ated the materiality of the Pei Cen Stele on paper. In Album D, Huang attached his stylistic interpretation to the rubbing of the Pei Cen Stele.78 He tran-scribed the entire text of the inscription with seemingly slim and weak brush-work. The configuration of individual characters follows the stone carving closely. The character ci, for example, features a vertically elongated shape. The element kou within the character appears as a square with the lower, right-hand side corner slightly bent. The almost identical character composition with the original engraving tells that Huang must have closely observed an authentic rubbing of the Pei Cen Stele. In addition, the ways Huang represented kou in-dicate that he was familiar with Weng’s identification of the style. The slender and unmodulated brushwork may appear weak based on traditional standards, which stresses concealed brush tips and a stable movement of the brush. In his copy, Huang exposed most of his brush tips, and executed some of the strokes with an unsteady movement of the brush. I interpret this unorthodox method

75 Bai Qianshen 2003: 34–50.76 Burnett 2013: 210.77 McNair 2015: 53–54.78 For reproductions of Huang’s transcription of the Pei Cen Stele, see footnote 40.



of writing as an artistic experiment to evoke the carving effect and the natural erosion of the stone. Huang did not hide his brush tip when he began to write the second horizontal line in the centre of the character yue 月, creating an un-usual shape that resembles an elephant tusk. This awkward structure probably derives from the chiselling effect of the engraving on the Pei Cen Stele (Figure 4). When ending this stroke, Huang seemed to have slowly dragged his brush on the paper to generate an impression of uneven ink tonality. The sparkling-white effect towards the end of the brushstroke reminds viewers of the visual characteristics of a rubbing of an eroded stone monument. The craggy surface of an aged stele would often leave random black scratches on the white rubbing paper. Huang’s change of speed in this single stroke perhaps aimed to express the physical condition of the Pei Cen Stele as an ancient cultural relic. His in-terpretation of the transitional style stresses the historicity of the Pei Cen Stele by incorporating inventive brushwork that can signify a carved stone surface.

figure 4 Ink rubbing of the Pei Cen Stele in Album A, c. 1779, 38.5 × 21.5 cm. Character yue 月 and character tai 太 are on the middle row of the imageImage credit: Beijing tushuguan, Zhongguo guojia tushuguan bietie jinghua, 1: 117

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A friend of Huang Yi, Yi Bingshou used an extremely vigorous brushwork to imagine the initial appearance of the Pei Cen Stele at the time of its establish-ment (Figure 5). During the late eighteenth century, Yi was celebrated by his contemporaries as an ingenious calligrapher of the clerical script. In this work, Yi transcribed twelve characters from the Pei Cen Stele as a brief synopsis of the inscription. His selective copy of the text was not unprecedented in the innovative transcription. Wang Duo王铎 (1592–1652), a cursive-script calligra-pher of the late Ming (1368–1644), once combined texts from different callig-raphies by Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi, and claimed this work as a ‘copy’.79 This kind of method strengthens the subjectivity of the artist and undermines the authority of the model. Yi’s excerpt in his work only aims to allude to the Pei Cen Stele and does not aspire to fully reproduce its content. In addition, the style Yi chose for his transcription is more important than what he selected to copy. Bold in shape and dark in colour, brushstrokes in this work generate a strong sense of forcefulness. Yi seemed to have steadily held his brush to ex-ecute each character firmly and slowly. The simplification of horizontal and vertical strokes to almost identical, unmodulated lines has transformed this calligraphy into a compelling exhibition of brushwork strength. Yi’s interpreta-tion, in my view, replenishes the monument afresh as if characters of the Pei Cen Stele were undamaged. In addition, Yi equally paid close attention to the current shape of characters as shown on the authentic rubbing. On the stele, the dot in the character tai 太 has blended into the heavily worn surface of the stone (Figure 4). In his copy, Yi chose to omit the dot and present the character as da 大. I do not think Yi mistranscribed this character in this work.. Instead, I believe Yi was trying to showcase his observation about the present condition of the stone. In this way, he not only demonstrated his knowledge about the state of the Pei Cen Stele but also projected his vision of what the inscription should look like in the first place. Capturing the present while imagining the past, this paradoxical interpretation perhaps best fits with the Pei Cen Stele, an inscription that synthesizes the new script type with the old one.

5 Conclusion

This article tells the stories of the excavation, representation, reproduction, circulation, and interpretation of the Pei Cen Stele, a Han-dynasty artefact from the new frontier of the Qing empire in the eighteenth century. The dis-covery of the Pei Cen Stele happened in the course of the Manchu conquest of

79 Bai 2003: 40–42.



figure 5 Yi Bingshou. Copy of the Pei Cen Stele, 1803Image credit: Yi Bingshou, Mo’an ji jin, pages unnumbered

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Xinjiang. Scholar-officials portrayed the Pei Cen Stele as a symbol of cultural prosperity in poems and imperial projects to support military expansion. Due to its distant location, people at the time fashioned a variety of copies of the Pei Cen Stele to fulfil their desires for financial profit, to preserve the monu-ment, and to connect with the history. Authentic rubbings of the Pei Cen Stele were highly sought after by epigraphic scholars. Other versions, however, were produced by facsimile and forgery. Noted antiquarians of the day produced tracing copies and replicas of the Pei Cen Stele for its preservation and study. In the circulation of these multipurpose copies, identifying the authentic Pei Cen Stele became a specialized form of knowledge that required expertise in epigraphy, palaeography, and connoisseurship. The exchange of these copies among friends and relatives also constituted a conduit for personal memories. The meaningful relationship between Huang Yi and his brother, for example, was crystallized in the transmission of these material objects. Calligraphers of the eighteenth century assembled the transitional style of the Pei Cen Stele in their innovative transcriptions of the monument. Huang Yi and Yi Bingshou represented the materiality of the Pei Cen Stele and tried to restore its origi-nal appearance with their interpretative calligraphy. The collection of the Pei Cen Stele on these varied media demonstrates that collecting in the Qing was a form of invention. Collectors, be it eminent scholars, savvy antiquarians, ac-complished carvers, or talented calligraphers, invented the Pei Cen Stele as a symbol of prosperity, a cultural relic, and a calligraphy exemplar, through their purposeful interactions with the ancient artefact.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dr Amy McNair for her help in the preparation of this paper. I would also like to thank Vickie F. Doll, the librarian for China and Korea stud-ies at the University of Kansas, who made research and publication of this paper possible.

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Collecting the Pei Cen Stele in Qing China

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