Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Collection | Tsinghua University Warring States bamboo slips |
| Period | Middle to late Warring States |
| Length | Over twenty slips |
| Nature | Fortune of the year and what is fitting at each time |
| Publication | Volume 13 of the Tsinghua University Warring States Bamboo Slips |
Contents
The text takes the year as its unit, discussing the fortune and the fitting conduct of each part of the year.
The title means “directing the year,” that is, presiding over the order of the year’s affairs.
Its division of labour with “Four Seasons”
The two are close in nature, both attaching affairs to the seasons.
“Four Seasons” emphasizes the stars and seasonal signs of the four seasons and twelve months; “Directing the Year” emphasizes the year’s fortune and the fitting conduct of affairs.
That both stand in one batch shows the knowledge had already been divided into finer parts in the Warring States.
Value
Read with the day books, they show that “acting according to the time” ran, above, through the monthly ordinances of state government and, below, through the popular avoidances of the day books, with texts like these two in between.
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.