Yi Zhou Shu
This dubious tradition began with Liu Xiang (79–8 BCE) describing the text as: "The solemn statements and orders of the Zhou period; they are in fact the residue of the hundred pian [chapters] discussed by Confucius.
Shaughnessy concludes that since "both of these traditions can be shown to be without foundation", and since all the earliest textual citations refer to it as Zhoushu, there is now a "general scholarly consensus" that the title should in fact read simply as Zhou shu.
[7] However, since Zhou shu also figures as the section of the Book of Documents, the name "Yizhoushu" has obtained broad currency as safely marking the differentiation.
Based upon linguistic and thematic consistencies, modern scholarship reveals that 32 chapters constitute a textual "core" treating governmental and military topics.
McNeal disagrees with Shaughnessy's claim that "there is no discernible organization of the text," and contends, "there is in fact a chronological presentation of material throughout the progression of most of the chapters.
These have linguistic and intellectual features characteristic of Warring States writings, and were quoted in classics such as the Zuozhuan, Hanfeizi, and Zhanguoce.
[18] Qing historian Zhu Youceng (朱右曾, 19th century) claimed that, though possibly not produced in the early Zhou, Yizhoushu had no features of the Warring States or Qin–Han forgery.
According to McNeal, several schools (including one branch of Confucianism) emphasized the concept of wen and wu as "the civil and martial spheres of government as comprising a comprehensive totality.
According to Chinese scholars, possible transmission line of the earliest Yizhoushu chapters went through the state of Jin (晉) and its subsequently divided territories.
The (636) Book of Sui lists a Zhoushu in ten fascicles (juan), and notes it derived from the Jizhong discovery of Jin dynasty period.
First, contemporary research on the Yizhoushu has conclusively demonstrated that the received text could not have been recovered from King Xiang's tomb along with the Bamboo Annals.
The dates of Kong's life are uncertain, but he was a close contemporary of Wang Su (195–256), and the last historical reference to him was in an imperial invitation of 266.
The (1936) Sibu beiyao 四部備要 series reprinted Lu's edition, which is called the 抱經堂本 "Baojing Study version".
The (1919) Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 collection reproduced the earliest edition, a (1543) version by Zhang Bo (章檗) printed at the Jiaxing provincial academy.
[27] After its compilation, the Yizhoushu was condemned as inadequate representation of history by the traditional Confucian scholars of the late imperial period, beginning from the Song dynasty (Ding Fu, Hong Mai).
He concluded on those grounds that they could not have been authentic Zhou documents, and thus Liu Xiang's claim that they had been left over by Confucius was necessarily false.
The organization of the chapter, the totals of captives and animals, etc., are best understood in this light, and as demonstrating an ideal of kingship far removed from the moralistic "Mandate of Heaven" ideological construction of the Zhou conquest: hence Mencius's rejection of what is probably a more authentic account.
