粵閩巡視紀略

YuèMǐn xúnshì jìlüè 粵閩巡視紀略

Brief Account of an Inspection Tour through Guǎngdōng and Fújiàn by 杜臻 (撰)

About the work

A 6-juàn official tour-and-inspection record by Dù Zhēn 杜臻 (1633–1703), then Gōngbù shàngshū 工部尚書, documenting his mission with Nèigé xuéshì Shí Zhù 石柱 to Guǎngdōng and Fújiàn from the eleventh month of Kāngxī 22 (December 1683) to the fifth month of Kāngxī 23 (May/June 1684), surveying and laying down the post-Taiwan-pacification coastal frontier — the system of yíngwǔ 營伍 (military stations), garrison troops (with detailed enumerations), maritime defense at coastal yánglièshù 洋列戍 (sea-watch posts), and the redrawn boundaries restoring civilian residence to coast that had been depopulated under the Hǎijìn 海禁 prohibitions of the 1660s. The tour took place in the immediate aftermath of Shī Láng’s 施琅 conquest of Taiwan in Kāngxī 22 (1683) and Zhèng Kèshuǎng’s 鄭克塽 surrender; the new frontier order was being institutionalised by Dù and Shí.

The work’s structure: 1 juàn of Yánhǎi zǒngtú 沿海總圖 (Coastal Master Maps); 3 juàn of Yuè lüè 粵略 (Guǎngdōng); 2 juàn of Mǐn lüè 閩略 (Fújiàn); and 1 juàn of Fùjì Pénghú Táiwān 附紀澎湖臺灣 (an Appendix on the Pénghú islands and Taiwan, based on inquiries — Dù did not himself travel to Taiwan). The text is organized as a daily-itinerary record (páirì jìzǎi 排日記載), with descriptions of coastal topography, military-station defensive arrangements, troop strengths, fortified-control of the sea-channels, and antiquarian / poetic notes on famous sites en route. The included Yánhǎi zǒngtú 沿海總圖 is one of the earliest detailed Qing-period coastal maps of the southeast frontier; the WYG recension reproduces fourteen panels.

Tiyao

YuèMǐn xúnshì jìlüè in 6 juàn, by Dù Zhēn of our dynasty. In Kāngxī 22 (1683), Taiwan was pacified and the various rebels were exterminated; the coastal people had been able to settle and resume their occupations; Zhēn was at that time Gōngbù shàngshū and was, by imperial command, dispatched together with Nèigé xuéshì Shí Zhù to inspect Yuè and Mǐn, to survey and demarcate the territory. They set out in the eleventh month and concluded the mission in the fifth month of the year 23. So he composed this book recording the principal matters as he had managed them. It opens with the Yánhǎi zǒngtú; followed by Yuè lüè in 3 juàn; followed by Mǐn lüè in 2 juàn; followed by an appendix on Pénghú and Taiwan in 1 juàn. Zhēn’s tour proceeded from Guǎng[dōng] to Fú[jiàn] — hence the order of the volumes. Taiwan he had not visited in person; he records what he learned through inquiry — hence the appendix at the end. Within: the daily-itinerary record on coastal xíngshì (topography), camp-formations, troop-strengths is laid out in detail; on the yángliè (sea-watch) post-arrangements, he is also able to convey the essentials. The shānshuǐ (mountains-and-rivers) and gǔjì (antiquities) and the inscriptions of earlier visitors are also taken up here and there for verification — sufficient to provide for bólǎn (broad reading). On the whole, his account is based on direct observation, and is therefore unlike that of zhěshí (compendium-pickers) of the yútú (geographical) genre; it has rather the quality of zhōu yuán zī zōu (carrying the imperial enquiry to the four quarters). Reverently presented in the fifth month of Qiánlóng 45 (= 1780). Chief Editors: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The YuèMǐn xúnshì jìlüè is the principal eyewitness Chinese-language source on the post-Taiwan settlement of the southeast coastal frontier. After Shī Láng’s surrender of Taiwan to the Qing in 1683 and the lifting of the Hǎijìn 海禁 maritime prohibition (which had since 1661 forced the coastal population inland by some thirty lǐ), the Kāngxī court sent Dù Zhēn (1633–1703) — then Gōngbù shàngshū — and Nèigé xuéshì Shí Zhù 石柱 to survey the new frontier order, redraw the jiāngjiè 疆界 (territorial boundaries), and codify the yíngwǔ zhìdù (military-station system). Dù’s career — a Jiāxīng 嘉興 native, Shùnzhì 15 (1658) jìnshì, eventual rise to Shàngshū of three Boards and Shūmìyuàn membership — gave him both administrative seniority and personal connections in the Lower Yangtze that the assignment required. The catalog meta entry’s “date: ‘1658’” appears to be a confused reference to his jìnshì date, not to the work’s date.

CBDB confirms Dù Zhēn 1633–1703 (the catalog gives no dates). The mission ran from late 1683 through mid-1684, hence the work’s composition cannot be earlier than 1684; it was probably written up over the following years and circulated by c. 1690. A defensible composition window is therefore 1684–1690.

The work’s principal value is in (i) preserving a detailed snapshot of the post-1683 southeast-coastal yíngwǔ (military-station) order at the moment of its institutionalisation — invaluable for the historical geography of Qing maritime defense; (ii) the Yánhǎi zǒngtú coastal master maps (14 panels in the WYG), among the earliest detailed Qing-period coastal cartography of the southeast; (iii) the appended PénghúTáiwān notice (cobbled together from informant reports), one of the earliest Qing-period Mainland references to the islands, predating much of the better-known eighteenth-century Taiwan documentary corpus; (iv) the antiquarian and literary notes that situate the report within the yútú (geographical record) tradition while distinguishing it (as the Sìkù notice emphasizes) from compendium-cribbing through its eyewitness basis.

Translations and research

• No substantial English-language translation located. The work is treated in passing in scholarly studies of Qing maritime history.
• John E. Wills, Pepper, Guns, and Parleys: The Dutch East India Company and China, 1662–1681 (HUP, 1974) — provides the broader context of the Hǎi-jìn period and the post-1683 settlement.
• Robert Antony, Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The World of Pirates and Seafarers in Late Imperial South China (UC Press, 2003) — uses the Yuè-Mǐn xún-shì jì-lüè among Qing-period sources for coastal-defense documentation.
• Tonio Andrade, How Taiwan Became Chinese (ColUP, 2008), provides a parallel account of Taiwan in the Cheng-period from European sources.
• The Sì-kù tíyào notice is in 史部·傳記類四·雜錄之屬.

Other points of interest

The work’s Hǎijìn and post-Hǎijìn documentation is methodologically important: the 1661–1683 Hǎijìn prohibitions had forced a depopulated coastal strip (“qiānjiè” 遷界) varying from 30 to 50 lǐ deep, with grave humanitarian and economic consequences; Dù’s mission was the principal Qing-period institutional response to the fùjiè 復界 (return-to-the-coast) settlement. The detailed troop counts and station distributions enable modern historical-geography reconstruction of the southeast coastal-defense order. The included maps — though stylized in the yútú convention — preserve identifiable geographic features and represent an important benchmark for the cartographic transition from Míng-style coastal mapping to the Qīng-period systematic surveys later codified in the Huángyú quánlǎn tú (1717–18).

Links

• CBDB person id 34914 (Dù Zhēn 杜臻, 1633–1703).
• Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §50, §62 (geographical and travel writing).
• Hummel 1943, s.v. Tu Chen.