Qiándào Lín’ān zhì 乾道臨安志
Lín’ān Gazetteer of the Qiándào Era by 周淙 (zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A surviving fragment (3 juan) of a Southern Sòng prefectural gazetteer of Lín’ān 臨安 — the xíngzài 行在 (“temporary capital”, i.e. modern Hángzhōu) of the Sòng court after the 1127 flight south — originally compiled in 15 juan by Zhōu Cóng 周淙 during his second tenure as prefect (zhī Lín’ān fǔ 知臨安府), commencing in the fifth year of the Qiándào reign (1169). It is the earliest of the three Southern Sòng Lín’ān gazetteers (the other two being Shī È’s 施諤 Chúnyòu Lín’ān zhì 淳祐臨安志, and Qián Shuōyǒu’s 潛說友 KR2k0022 Xiánchún Lín’ān zhì 咸淳臨安志), and the only one of the three to survive in pre-Yuán print: the present Sìkù base text descends from a Sòng-engraved copy held by the Hángzhōu collector Sūn Yǎngzēng 孫仰曾, of which only juan 1–3 (out of an original 15) had been preserved. Despite its fragmentary state the Sìkù editors rated it the principal source of Wǔlín zhǎnggù 武林掌故 (“notable matters of Wǔlín / Hángzhōu”) for the early Southern Sòng.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Qiándào Lín’ān zhì in three juan is by Zhōu Cóng 周淙, Yòuwéndiàn xiūzhuàn 右文殿修撰 and prefect of Lín’ān, of the Sòng. After the Southern Sòng court moved south, Lín’ān was established as the xíngdōu 行都 (temporary capital). Zhōu Cóng, in the fifth year of Qiándào (1169), on his second appointment as prefect of Hángzhōu, first set about composing this gazetteer. In all 15 juan, as recorded in the Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì 宋史藝文志. Subsequently, in the Chúnyòu period (1241–1252) Shī È 施諤 and in the Xiánchún period (1265–1274) Qián Shuōyǒu 潛說友 each successively compiled and edited [their own Lín’ān gazetteers], all of which were brought to completion. Today only the Qián [Shuōyǒu] zhì still survives in manuscript transcript; the Zhōu and the Shī are long since untransmitted.
The present base text was [supplied] from the household of Sūn Yǎngzēng 孫仰曾 of Hángzhōu — a Sòng-engraved copy whose juan-heads bore only the title Lín’ān zhì; but in the body of the work, [Sòng] Gāozōng is referred to as “Guāngyáo tàishànghuángdì” 光堯太上皇帝 and Xiàozōng as “the present sovereign” (jīnshàng 今上), and the registry of prefects (mùshǒu 牧守) ends at Cóng himself — that it is the Qiándào gazetteer is beyond doubt. Regrettably, juan 4 onwards are wholly lost, and what survives is only one or two parts in ten.
Juan 1 records the palaces, gates, and government offices, headed Xíngzàisuǒ 行在所 (“the place where the imperial conveyance is staying”) to distinguish it from a [provincial] jùnzhì 郡志 — a structural choice of the highest discrimination, and one which the later Qián [Shuōyǒu] Lín’ān zhì duly followed. Juan 2 is divided into the sub-categories yángé 沿革, xīngyě 星野, fēngsú 風俗, zhōujìng 州境, chéngshè 城社, hùkǒu 戶口, xièshè 廨舍, xuéxiào 學校, kējǔ 科舉, jūnyíng 軍營, fāngshì 坊市, jièfēn 界分, qiáoliáng 橋梁, wùchǎn 物產, tǔgòng 土貢, shuìfù 稅賦, cāngchǎng 倉場, guǎnyì 館驛, etc., with tíngtánglóuguāngéxuān 亭堂樓觀閣軒 appended at the end; the disposition is concise yet substantial, and possesses the highest economy of structure. Juan 3 records the prefects from the Three Kingdoms (Wú) down to the Qiándào of the Sòng, with the proper measure of detail and brevity throughout.
Cóng’s zì was Yànguǎng 彥廣; he was a man of Húzhōu 湖州. During his tenure as prefect of the capital, he dredged the West Lake (liáo hú jùn qú 撩湖浚渠) and his administrative achievements were considerable; thus what he compiled likewise has order and method. Today, although the book is mutilated and incomplete, yet within the Southern Sòng dìzhì corpus it is in fact the most ancient extant exemplar — those who would investigate the Wǔlín (Hángzhōu) lore are obliged to take this book as their first authority.
Reverently collated and submitted, third month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Editors-in-chief: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General collation officer: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
(The Wényuāngé volume also contains the Qiánlóng emperor’s quatrain 御製題乾道臨安志, celebrating his discovery of this rare Sòng print after four southern tours during which he had been unable to find documentary evidence of Lín’ān’s ancient sites.)
Abstract
The Qiándào Lín’ān zhì is the founding work of the Southern Sòng tradition of capital-gazetteers for Lín’ān. Zhōu Cóng (d. by 1175; zì Yànguǎng 彥廣, of Húzhōu 湖州) had served once before in Hángzhōu as liǎngZhè zhuǎnyùn fùshǐ 兩浙轉運副使; on his return as zhī Lín’ān fǔ in Qiándào 5 (1169), holding the honorary title Yòuwéndiàn xiūzhuàn, he undertook the gazetteer in 15 juan, recorded under that count in the Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì 宋史藝文志. The work is dated by reign era: composition began in 1169 and almost certainly closed before Cóng left office (he is last attested in 1170 in his second Hángzhōu tenure, and the registry of prefects in juan 3 ends with himself), so the bracket Qiándào 5–9 (1169–1173) — well within the Qiándào reign era — is appropriate. CBDB id 503 confirms Cóng’s identity as son of Zhōu Xú 周徐 with cross-references to Xiánchún Lín’ān zhì 50.7b and Sòng shǐ 390.11b.
The defining structural innovation, repeatedly noted by the Sìkù editors and inherited by both successor gazetteers, is the use of Xíngzàisuǒ 行在所 (“at the imperial sojourn”) rather than the customary prefectural framing for the opening juan: this signals that Lín’ān is not merely a fǔ but a xíngdū 行都, and lets the gazetteer record palaces, court offices, and imperial ritual sites alongside the routine prefectural sub-categories. The fragment that survives consists of: juan 1, Xíngzàisuǒ (palace and central-court offices); juan 2, the standard prefectural sub-categories — yángé (administrative history), xīngyě (astrology), fēngsú (customs), borders, walls, registered population, offices, schools, examinations, garrisons, wards and markets, ward boundaries, bridges, products, tribute, taxes, granaries, post-stations, and pavilions/towers; juan 3, biographies of 184 prefects from Three Kingdoms Wú down to Cóng himself.
The base text used by the Sìkù editors is the Sòng-print remnant in the collection of the Hángzhōu bibliophile Sūn Yǎngzēng 孫仰曾 (juan 1–3 only, juan 4–15 lost). In Guāngxù 4 (1878), Qián Bǎotáng 錢保塘 of Hǎiníng collated a manuscript transcript of a Shǔ-cut copy held by Zhāng Shuòqīng 章碩卿 against this Sòng remnant and supplied additional fragments recovered from quotations in the Xiánchún Lín’ān zhì, producing a one-juan Qiándào Lín’ān zhì zhájì 乾道臨安志札記 to circulate alongside Sūn’s three-juan recension. The work is included in the Sìkù quánshū, the Wǔxùntáng cóngshū 武訓堂叢書, the Yuèyǎtáng cóngshū 粵雅堂叢書, the Wǔlín zhǎnggù cóngbiān 武林掌故叢編, and modern collectanea including the Zhōngguó fāngzhì cóngshū 中國方志叢書; the Zhèjiāng Rénmín Chūbǎnshè NánSòng Lín’ān liǎng zhì 南宋臨安兩志 (Hángzhōu, 1983) reprints it together with Shī È’s Chúnyòu Lín’ān zhì fragment.
The Qiánlóng emperor’s yúzhì 御製 quatrain prefacing the Wényuāngé copy expressly notes that during his four southern tours (1751–1765) he had been unable to find documentary evidence for Lín’ān’s antiquities and welcomed the recovery of this Sòng print as a long-sought source.
Translations and research
No full English translation. The standard modern punctuated edition is the 1983 Zhèjiāng Rénmín Chūbǎnshè Nán-Sòng Lín’ān liǎng zhì. The Japanese collaborative reading edition, Umehara Kaoru 梅原郁 et al., Nan-Sō Rin’an ryōshi 南宋臨安兩志 (CiNii BN13312191, Kyōto: Dōhōsha, 1983) is the principal scholarly tool in Japanese; it provides full annotation. The Christian de Pee studies of Wǔlín jiùshì 武林舊事 and Stephen H. West’s work on Hángzhōu urban writing draw repeatedly on this text. For the German-language overview, see Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer’s chapter on Sòng historiography in the Saeculum tradition; Ulrich Theobald’s Chinaknowledge entry consolidates the bibliographic situation.
Other points of interest
Zhōu Cóng’s hydraulic work on the West Lake during his Hángzhōu tenure is one of the recurrent themes in subsequent Hángzhōu gazetteer literature, and the Qiándào gazetteer is the contemporary documentary anchor for it. The work also preserves valuable detail on the central court offices in Lín’ān before the late-thirteenth-century elaboration of the imperial palace district visible in the Xiánchún Lín’ān zhì, and is therefore the earliest stratum of evidence for the urban history of the Southern Sòng capital.