陳學霖
Department of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington
二十世紀初，比利時聖母聖心會的蒙古學者田清波神甫 (Antoine Mostaert, C.I.C.M.)，在内蒙古鄂爾多斯獲得一件講述「大明永樂帝建造北京城的故事」的蒙文鈔本。鈔本有兩份，無撰人，寫作年代不詳，俱於一九○七年謄錄。田神甫又收錄一則標題〈元太子、真太子〉，與前本内容相若但較簡略的口述故事並以法文翻譯。一九七二年，同教會的司律思神甫 (Henry Serruys, C.I.C.M.) 將鈔本作拉丁音寫及英文翻譯，題名 “Book of the Story of how Emperor Yung-lo of the Great Ming built the City of Peking. The Yüan Prince, The True Prince”（〈大明永樂皇帝如何建造北京城的故事──元太子、真太子〉），在是年由美國蒙古學會出版的《慶祝拉鐵摩爾 (Owen Lattimore) 教授七十壽辰論文集》發刊，學界由此知悉這件珍貴蒙古文獻。故事中的「元太子」指燕王朱棣，即後來的成祖永樂帝，為明太祖第四子，生母為蒙古洪吉剌皇妃；「真太子」影射建文帝朱允炆，本是皇太子朱標次子，父死後立為皇太孫，二者因此是叔姪關係。故事編撰者在此故意調亂，改為同出明太祖及其蒙古皇妃的親兄弟關係。
本故事糅雜蒙古傳說及漢人歷史，敘事從元末漢人起義，蒙古末帝妥懽貼睦爾合汗出走大都，元朝滅亡起，至傳聞稱為其遺腹子的「元太子」登位，繼承養父太祖為明朝的永樂皇帝為止。内容包括漢人在閏八月十五中秋夕起義，大明朱洪武皇帝的軍隊攻陷大都，妥懽貼睦爾出走，遺下已懷孕的蒙古小皇妃隨即下嫁明朝皇帝，誕生了「元太子」和「真太子」，後來皇帝鑑於兩兄弟不斷爭鬥，將「元太子」出戍後來的北京鎮防，此時「元太子」記起先前母妃病危，曾給以兩道封密的信筒，囑他在危難時開視一封，在顯耀時開視另一封，於是啟視首封信件，照所指示請父皇派遣謀臣劉伯溫（基）隨行。到了戍地，遇到黑臉黑騎異人指授，便請劉伯溫依計建造都城，後來獲悉父皇病逝，幼弟「真太子」繼立，就領兵到南京拜祭，其弟懼怕報復，自縊身亡，「元太子」於是回北京登位為明朝的永樂皇帝。這些情節將歷史與傳說混淆，目的是宣傳永樂皇帝為妥懽貼睦爾合汗的遺腹子，因此元朝雖亡，統治中國明朝的仍是蒙古人的後裔，作爲蒙古人喪失天下帝國的心靈慰藉。
司律思神甫的論文僅將蒙文鈔本音寫及翻譯，並未探索其史料來源以及故事的蒙漢歷史文化内涵。本論文將蒙文鈔本據英、法文本作漢譯，勾勒蒙漢史籍雜著及小說俗說，考覈各項事件情節的來歷，對故事的蒙古史觀及蒙漢文化交匯作深入分析，闡明此鈔本對蒙古史學研究的價值。
關鍵詞：元順帝
妥懽貼睦爾合汗 永樂帝 明北京城 劉伯溫（基）
Apropos
of the Historical Sources of the Mongol Story
“How Emperor Yongle of the Great Ming Built the City of Peking”
Hok-lam Chan
Department of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington
During the early twentieth century, the Rev. Antoine Mostaert, CICM, the renowned Belgian missionary and Mongolist, acquired a rare Mongol manuscript from the Ordos in Inner Mongolia titled “Book of the Story of How Emperor Yongle of the Great Ming built the City of Peking. The Yuan Prince, The True Prince.” There were two handwritten copies, both were transcribed in 1907 but no date nor identity of authorship was given. The Reverend also recorded from storytellers an oral version of the same story short-titled “The Yuan Prince, The True Prince.” In this fiction-laden story the Yuan Prince refers to the posthumous son of the last Mongol-Yuan ruler Toghon Temür gaghan by his Mongol qatun, who later became an adopted son of the Ming emperor Zhu Hongwu; and the True Prince, his younger brother born later to the same mother. The True Prince inherited the Chinese throne after the Ming emperor’s death, and the Yuan Prince subsequently replaced his brother as Emperor Yongle of the Ming dynasty after the former committed suicide. In actual history, however, the Yuan Prince referred to Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, Ming Taizu’s fourth son by a Mongol consort from the Qonggird tribe; and the True Prince, to Zhu Yunwen, the grandson of Ming Taizu, who inherited the throne as the Jianwen emperor after his grandfather’s death. The Prince of Yan succeeded by usurping the throne from the Jianwen emperor after a two-and-half years of civil war; their relationship was uncle to nephew, not as elder to younger brother as the story asserted.
In 1972 the Reverend Henry Serruys, CICM, Mostaert’s protégé, introduced this valuable manuscript by publishing a study which includes a Latin transcription and a complete English translation with critical notes under the title: “A Manuscript Version of the Legend of the Mongol Ancestry of the Yung-lo Emperor,” in Analecta Mongolica, Dedicated to the Seventieth Birthday of Professor Owen Lattimore (Bloomington, Indiana: The Mongol Society). In an admixture of legend and history, the story presents several highlights of facts and fiction in a Sino-Mongolian setting. They begin with the anti-Mongol Chinese uprisings on the eve of the Mid-Autumn festival in the 1360s; the Ming emperor Zhu Hongwu’s capture of Dadu and Toghon Temür’s hurried departure; the pregnant Mongol qatun’s marriage to the Ming emperor without revealing her conception; her birth of the posthumous son the Yuan Prince, and another son fathered by the Ming emperor named the True Prince. Following this, concerned about the enmity of his two sons, the Ming emperor dispatched the Prince of Yuan to the land of future Peking to establish a fief; before this, in her sick bed the Mongol qatun gave the Prince two letters in separate sealed envelopes, with the instruction that he opened one in time of suffering, and another one in time of success; now in great distress, the Prince unsealed the first letter, and, following the instruction, pleaded with the emperor for the service of adviser Liu Bowen and his request was granted. After arriving at the designated locality, the Prince of Yuan ran into a burly swarthy-faced rider who took away his bow and arrows, then shot one arrow at each of the four directions, admonishing the Prince to appoint Liu Bowen in charge of building the capital in the area where the arrows had fallen and where caches of gold, silver, and jewels will be found. With the great city thereafter known as Peking being built, the Prince set up his own fief in the region, but soon learned the death of his father in Nanjing and hurried there with a company of soldiers to pay homage. At this time the “True Prince” had already ascended the throne, but upon learning the arrival of his elder brother and remembering the earlier enmity, the Prince was frightened and hanged himself. The story ends with the Prince of Yuan returning to Peking where he enthroned in succession to his late father to become Emperor Yongle of the Great Ming dynasty, and inaugurated a lineage of thirteen generations of successive rulers. In a nutshell, by propagating the legend of the Mongol ancestry of the Yongle emperor, the story imaginatively provided the wistful consolation to the Mongol community that even though the Yuan dynasty had fallen, the rulers of China remained in the hands of the descendants of the Mongol gaghan through the lineage of the“Yuan Prince.”
Despite his pivotal effort, however, Serruys has not closely examined the historical sources and the Mongol and Chinese cultural traditions presented in the story. Besides providing a Chinese translation of the Mongol story, the present paper seeks not only to explore the historical origins of the various episodes, but also examine the Mongol views of history and the intermingling of Mongol and Chinese cultural traditions to shed new light on the manuscript’s contribution to Sino-Mongolian historical studies.
Keywords: Yuan Shundi, Toghon Temür gaghan, The Yongle Emperor, Ming Peking, Liu Bowen (Liu Ji)