Wan Baochang (萬寶常)

Overview

The translated histories identify Wan Baochang as an artisan and musician. This record brings together 4 passages from 1 chapter across 1 history, with names, dates, relationships, offices, and events preserved as source-backed claims.

Names

Type	English	Chinese	Pinyin
Personal	Wan Baochang	萬寶常	Wan Baochang
Personal	Baochang	寶常	Baochang

Identity

Historicity: Historical
Identification: Named
Sex: Male

Sex: male
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:145:s0107

Roles

Artisan
Musician

Life and dates

Attested activity

Source Date: Text: 隋朝 · Western Interval: Start: AD 581 · End: AD 604
Explicit event contextual date · jiuwudaishi:145:s0107

Places and affiliations

Polity: Sui / 隋 · Relation: served
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:145:s0107

Events and relationships

Kind: music-revision · Role: reviser · Action: reduced-string-count-for-archaic-plainness
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:145:s0107

References in the histories

Open any source group to read the Chinese and English passage in context.

Old History of the Five Dynasties, Chapter 145Volume 145: Treatises 7 Music 2 · 4 passages

Open chapter

工人萬寶常又減其絲數，稍令古淡。 The craftsman Wan Baochang further reduced the number of strings, giving the music a somewhat plainer, more archaic character.

博士何妥駁奏，其鄭、萬所奏八十四調並廢。 Academician He Tuo submitted a counter-memorial, and the eighty-four modes proposed by Zheng and Wan were abolished entirely.

唐太宗爰命舊工祖孝孫、張文收整比鄭譯、萬寶常所均七音八十四調，方得絲管並施，鐘石俱奏，七始之音復振，四廂之韻皆調。 Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered veteran masters Zu Xiaosun and Zhang Wenshou to reconcile the seven-note, eighty-four-mode system of Zheng Yi and Wan Baochang; only then could strings and pipes sound together with bells and stones, the seven foundational tones revive, and harmony return to all four sides of the ensemble.

樞密使王樸，采京房之準法，練梁武之通音，考鄭譯、寶常之七均，校孝孫、文收之九變，積黍累以審其度，聽聲詩以測其情，依權衡嘉量之前文，得備數和聲之大旨，施於鐘虡，足洽《簫韶》。 Privy Council Commissioner Wang Pu drew on Jing Fang's pitch standard, mastered Emperor Wu of Liang's universal tones, studied the seven keys of Zheng Yi and Wan Baochang and the nine transformations of Zu Xiaosun and Zhang Wenshou, calibrated measures with millet grains, tested pitches against the Sound Poems, followed ancient standards of weight and measure, recovered the principle of numbered harmony, and applied it to bells and stands until it matched the legendary Xiao-Shao music.