Xīn’ān zhì 新安志
Gazetteer of Xīn’ān [Huīzhōu] by 羅願 (zhuàn 撰)
About the work
The earliest extant prefectural gazetteer of Huīzhōu 徽州 (formerly Xīn’ānjùn 新安郡, modern southern Ānhuī), in 10 juan, completed in the second month of Chúnxī 2 (1175) by the Huī native and natural-history lexicographer Luó Yuàn 羅願 (1136–1184) — better known as the compiler of the Ěryǎ yì 爾雅翼 KR1j0012 — at the urging of the prefect Zhào Bùhuǐ 趙不悔, scion of the imperial house, who supplied his cooperation, ordered subordinate counties to gather inscriptions, and contributed a preface of his own. The work covers the prefecture proper plus its six subordinate counties Shè 歙, Xiūníng 休寧, Qímén 祁門, Wùyuán 婺源, Jìxī 績溪, and Yī 黟. It is universally cited, alongside the Wújùn zhì and Chúnxī Sānshān zhì, as one of the canonical exemplars of the Southern Sòng prefectural gazetteer; its wùchǎn (products) section in juan 2 in particular has been celebrated since the Yuán as a model fusion of fāngzhì and bówù writing, drawing directly on the methods that Luó had refined in the Ěryǎ yì. The Sìkù editors signal one limitation: certain politically delicate moments in the lives of late-Northern-Sòng Huī worthies (notably Hú Shùnzhì 胡舜陟 and his entanglement with Wáng Fǔ 王黼 and Qín Huì 秦檜) are silently passed over.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Xīn’ān zhì in 10 juan is by Luó Yuàn 羅願 of the Sòng. Yuàn has the Ěryǎ yì, already entered in the Sìkù. Earlier, Xiāo Jǐ 蕭幾 of the Liáng compiled a Xīn’ān shānshuǐ jì 新安山水記; Wáng Dǔ 王篤 also wrote a Xīn’ān jì 新安記. Under the Táng there was a Shèzhōu tújīng 歙州圖經; and during the Sòng Dàzhōngxiángfú (1008–1016) Lǐ Zōng’è 李宗諤 compiled and arranged the prefectural-and-commandery tújīng and promulgated them throughout the empire — whereupon the older gazetteers all fell into disuse. After the Fāng Là 方臘 disturbance (1120–21), the new tújīng was likewise scattered and lost. Yuàn had at intervals drawn together various texts and prepared a working draft, but had not brought it to completion, when in Chúnxī 2 (1175) Zhào Bùhuǐ became prefect of the zhōu and instructed him to bring it through to completion.
The book has, for juan 1, the zhōujùn (prefectural seat); juan 2, wùchǎn (products) and gòngfù (tribute and tax); juan 3 to juan 5, the six subordinate counties — Shè, Xiūníng, Qímén, Wùyuán, Jìxī, and Yī; juan 6 and juan 7, xiāndá 先達 (worthies of earlier generations); juan 8, jìnshì tímíng 進士題名 (registers of jìnshì) — under which all of xiánliáng 賢良, míngjīng 明經, xiànchè 獻策, cìchè 賜策, tèzòumíng 特奏名, and wǔjǔ 武舉 are appended; and yìmíng 義名 (worthy persons) and xiānshì 仙釋 (immortals and Buddhists) are likewise included in this juan; juan 9, mùshǒu (prefects); juan 10, zálù (miscellany).
The narrative is concise, the citations precise. For each xiāndá, the work registers his offices — distinguishing it from the historical biographies, and constituting a more methodical structure. The wùchǎn section was Luó’s specialist domain, and the citations there are particularly comprehensive. The tribute items it registers — dried yù (yam), làyá tea (tribute spring tea), fine cloth, and the like — are all materials that the standard histories had not registered. The xiāndá mini-biographies preserve full beginning-to-end careers — for instance the fact that Wāng Zǎo 汪藻 once held the office of fúbǎo láng — many of which are likewise items the standard biographies had passed over.
Zhào Bùhuǐ’s preface praises Luó for “his comprehensive knowledge in matters of bówù, hence the breadth of his discussion, and the [proper lìyán 立言] manner of his narration he had attained on his own”. Luó’s own self-preface likewise calls this “a Confucian’s book”, containing wēizhǐ 微旨 (subtle intention), and not merely “extracts from the registers” — a self-assessment which the work justifies. Chéng Mǐnzhèng’s 程敏政 Xīn’ān wénxiàn zhì 新安文獻志, in its postface to Luó’s epitaph for Hú Shùnzhì, observes that Luó’s Èzhōu Xīn’ān zhì “is silent on Wáng Fǔ’s harming of Wáng Yú 王俞, and on Qín Huì’s killing of Shùnzhì”. However, on examination of Liú Kèzhuāng’s 劉克莊 Hòucūn shīhuà 後村詩話: “Shùnzhì had wished to build a shrine for Qín Huì’s father; Gāo Dēng 高登 refused, and Shùnzhì therefore impeached Dēng to ingratiate himself with Huì; Shùnzhì then offended Huì on another matter, was thrown into prison, and died there, whereupon Dēng escaped.” So Shùnzhì’s death was the consequence of his trying to attach himself to Huì, and his being squeezed out for his pains. Luó’s silence is therefore not without considered intention, and one ought not too rapidly assume bad faith (qūbǐ 曲筆).
Reverently collated and submitted, eighth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). 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.
Abstract
Luó Yuàn (1136–1184; CBDB 17514, zì Duānliáng 端良, hào Cúnzhāi 存齋), son of the late-Gāozōng / early-Xiàozōng minister Luó Rǔjí 羅汝楫 and a Shèxiàn native, took up the Huīzhōu gazetteer at the suggestion of his contemporary Zhào Bùhuǐ. The composition history is documented in both prefaces and the Sìkù tíyào. Luó had begun assembling material privately, dissatisfied with the Tújīng that had survived the Fāng Là rebellion, and had reached a working draft on his own initiative; but as he says in his self-preface, “had not yet seen it through”. On Zhào Bùhuǐ’s appointment as prefect in 1174, Zhào — who had been frustrated by the inadequacy of the existing tújīng and was casually told that “Mr Luó of Xīnzhānggòng has been long at work on this matter” — sought him out, ordered subordinate counties to gather jīnshí inscriptions, set up an institutional channel by which his subordinates could refer queries to Luó, and brought the work to completion within months. Luó’s self-preface is dated guǐwèi of the third month of Chúnxī 2 (1175), and Zhào Bùhuǐ’s preface is broadly contemporary. The work is therefore precisely datable: 1175 (Chúnxī 2). The terminus a quo in the catalog meta is the same as the terminus ad quem.
The structural innovation that the Sìkù editors highlight is the systematic treatment of xiāndá 先達 (Huī worthies of earlier generations) over juan 6 and 7, in which each entry registers the person’s office in addition to his deeds — making it possible for MíngQīng historians to use the Xīn’ān zhì as a corrective and supplement to the standard-history biographies. Luó’s Ěryǎ yì training shows in the wùchǎn section, which records both items not previously registered in the standard zhì (e.g. tribute làyá tea, fine xìbù 細布, dried yù) and provides for each item a brief philological / botanical note. The zálù in juan 10 — divided into rénshì, shīhuà, záyì (miscellaneous arts), yàn (inkstones), zhǐ (paper), mò (ink), dìngshù (numerology), shényì (the marvellous), jìwén — also constitutes the earliest classical-language anchor for the well-known Huīzhōu craft-tradition of Sìbǎo 四寶 (paper, brush, ink, inkstone): the inkstone, paper, and ink sub-sections are a foundational source for the history of these crafts.
The work circulated thereafter in numerous Yuán, Míng, and Qīng editions; the Sìkù base text is drawn from a SòngYuán recension. The principal modern editions are: Lǐ Yǒngjiàn 李永鑑 et al. eds., Xīn’ān zhì, SòngYuán fāngzhì cóngkān 宋元方志叢刊, Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1990, vol. 8; and Liú Tāngyuán 劉湯沅 (ed.), Xīn’ān zhì jiàozhù 新安志校注, Huángshān Shūshè 黃山書社, 2008 — the standard punctuated edition. The Sìkù tíyào defends Luó’s silences on Hú Shùnzhì’s relations with Qín Huì by reference to Liú Kèzhuāng’s Hòucūn shīhuà: Hú himself had attempted to ingratiate himself with the chancellor, then fell foul of him; Luó’s reticence is therefore principled rather than merely partisan.
Translations and research
No complete English translation. The work is a foundational source for the rich Western and Chinese scholarship on Huīzhōu local society. Joseph P. McDermott, The Making of a New Rural Order in South China, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 2013–2020), and his earlier A Social History of the Chinese Book (Hong Kong, 2006), draw on the Xīn’ān zhì extensively for medieval Huī. Harriet Zurndorfer, Change and Continuity in Chinese Local History: The Development of Huizhou Prefecture, 800 to 1800 (Leiden: Brill, 1989) is the principal monograph treatment in English of Huīzhōu’s longue-durée history and uses the Xīn’ān zhì throughout. Joseph R. Dennis, Writing, Publishing, and Reading Local Gazetteers in Imperial China, 1100–1700 (Harvard, 2015) discusses the work as one of the model Southern Sòng exemplars. In Chinese, Wáng Zhènzhōng 王振忠’s prolific Huīzhōu studies (e.g. Míng-Qīng Huī-shāng yǔ Huái-Yáng shèhuì biànqiān, 1996) treat the Xīn’ān zhì as the prefectural baseline. The 2008 Huángshān Shūshè critical edition contains an extensive scholarly introduction.
Other points of interest
Luó’s own Ěryǎ yì and the Xīn’ān zhì are companion works in his oeuvre: the natural-history energy of the former is concentrated in juan 2 of the latter, which is the earliest detailed register of Huīzhōu products and the foundational source for the prefecture’s reputation in tea, paper, ink, and inkstone manufacture. The work’s editorial silences (around the Hú Shùnzhì / Qín Huì episode) flagged by Chéng Mǐnzhèng are the locus classicus of MíngQīng debate over the relation of fāngzhì to political memory, and the Sìkù discussion of the question is itself one of the most frequently cited passages of the tíyào corpus on Sòng fāngzhì.