蜀难叙略(一)

Shu Nan Xu Lue(Par I)

说明明末,成都城为张献忠大西军所破,华阳县令沈云祚被俘,不屈遇害。时其子沈荀蔚年仅三岁。此后与其母在蜀中漂泊流离,历经战乱,劫后余生。战乱平息后,沈荀蔚已成人(24岁),写成此《蜀难叙略》,备述自己在这一场浩劫中的经历。

Introduction:In late Ming dynasty,Chengdu was conquered by the peasant rebel army leading by Zhang Xianzhong(张献忠).Shen Yunzuo(沈云祚),the mayor of Chengdu city,was murdered for not surrendering.At that time,his son,Shen Xunwei,was only three years old.Having been wandering about with his mother in Sichuan district,Shen Xunwei survived the war.When the war was put down,Shen Xunwei was a 24-year-old adult and had composed this SHU NAN XU LUE(蜀难叙略)to elaborate his experience in this catastrophe and the slaughter that the Zhang Xianzhong's army committed in Sichuan in detail.What he had seen and heard is the precious material to learn the history of Sichuan and Chongqing district in the period of late Ming dynasty and Early Qing dynasty.With a skillful and vivid writing style,this article was composed and rewritten by three times of destroy.Though the author had grown up in vagabondage and wars,his persistence in keeping studying is perceptible in this article.The biography of his father,Shen Yunzuo,was composed in SHEN HUAYANG ZHUAN(沈华阳传)by Fan Wenguang(范文光)in late Ming dynasty whose original text and annotations could be found in our Papers on Languages and History(Volume 5).The original text is derived from SHU NAN XU LUE(蜀难叙略),Southwest Historical and Geographical Literature Documents(西南史地文献),pp.387-414(photocopy of the original texts),Series of Chinese Southwest Literature Documents(中国西南文献丛书),compiled by Miu Wenyuan,published by Lanzhou University Press in 2004.