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景定建康志

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Text ID
KR2k0021
Date
1261–1261
Dynasty
宋

Jǐngdìng Jiànkāng zhì 景定建康志

Gazetteer of Jiànkāng, [compiled in the] Jǐngdìng [reign-period] by 周應合

About the work

A fifty-juan prefectural gazetteer of Jiànkāng 建康 (modern Nánjīng 南京, then the Southern Sòng “留都” liúdū / auxiliary capital), compiled in 1260–61 by Zhōu Yìnghé 周應合 under the patronage of the Jiāngdōng ānfǔshǐ and prefect Mǎ Guāngzǔ 馬光祖 (hào Yùzhāi 裕齋, posthumously enfeoffed Duke of Jīnhuá 金華郡開國公). Compiled at the Zhōngshān gé 鍾山閣 office in the prefectural garden during a single 60-day cycle (jiǎzǐ to jiǎzǐ, third to seventh month of Jǐngdìng 2 = 1261), it consolidates and augments two earlier prefectural gazetteers — the Qiándào Jiànkāng zhì (Qiándào 1165–73) and the Qìngyuán Jiànkāng xùzhì (Qìngyuán 1195–1200) — and adds material for the sixty-year hiatus between Qìngyuán and Jǐngdìng. Wilkinson singles it out as the first surviving gazetteer with detailed instructions on the compilation and contents of fāngzhì — a foundational text in the methodology of Chinese local-historical writing (Chinese History: A New Manual §16.4.1).

Tiyao

We respectfully note: the Jǐngdìng Jiànkāng zhì in fifty juàn is by Zhōu Yìnghé 周應合 of the Sòng. Yìnghé was a man of Wǔníng 武寧, with the self-style Xīyuán xiānsheng 溪園先生; he became jìnshì in the Chúnyòu 淳祐 era (1241–1252) and rose to Shílùyuàn xiūzhuàn 實錄院修撰. Because he submitted a memorial impeaching Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道, he was demoted to tōngpàn of Ráozhōu. The book was written when he was serving — with the rank of Chéngzhí láng 承直郎 — as a delegated officer of the Jiāngnán Dōnglù pacification commission (Jiāngnán Dōnglù ānfǔsī gànbàn gōngshì).

After the Sòng moved south, an imperial travel-palace (xínggōng 行宮) was set up in Jīnlíng 金陵, and the prefecture renamed Jiànkāngfǔ. Gāozōng once made it his residence, and the Jiāngnán Dōnglù pacification commission was instituted to govern it; it became a strategic stronghold along the Yangtze. Local gazetteers were compiled repeatedly in the Qiándào (1165–73) and Qìngyuán (1195–1200) eras, but the records still had many gaps. In the Jǐngdìng (1260–64) era, the Bǎozhānggé xuéshì, Jiāngdōng ānfǔshǐ and prefect of Jiànkāng, Mǎ Guāngzǔ 馬光祖, first commissioned Yìnghé to take the old gazetteer, revise it thoroughly by deletion, add events from after Qìngyuán, correct errors, supply omissions, and compile it afresh as a separate work. It is divided into ten categories: jiāngyù 疆域 (territory), shānchuān 山川 (mountains and rivers), chéngquē 城闕 (city walls and gates), guānshǒu 官守 (officeholders), rúxué 儒學 (Confucian schools), wénjí 文籍 (literary documents), wǔwèi 武衛 (military defense), tiánfù 田賦 (fiscal lands), fēngtǔ 風土 (local customs), císì 祠祀 (shrines and sacrifices). The evidential basis is comprehensive and the organization detailed; the textual investigations everywhere display canonical authority. For example, the discussion that the name Dānyáng 丹陽 originally derives from Jiànyè 建業; that during the Six Dynasties Yángzhōu was always administered from Jiànyè, and only later did the name pass to Guǎnglíng as a single commandery; and that the legend of buried gold at Jīnlíng was a pretext to drive men to dig in the mountains — all are extremely precise and reliable. It is truly a model gazetteer with proper structure.

In the Jiājìng (1522–66) and Wànlì (1573–1620) eras of the Míng there was still a printed copy at the Nánjīng Imperial College (Guózǐ jiàn), as may be seen in Huáng Zuǒ’s 黃佐 Nán Yōng zhì 南雍志; but the surviving boards numbered only 759 leaves, so even then the work was already incomplete. Thereafter circulation ceased. Zhū Yízūn’s 朱彝尊 Pùshūtíng jí contains a colophon to this book, in which he states that Zhōu Zàijùn 周在浚 once told him he had glimpsed an incomplete copy; he searched for it for thirty years without success, and only later borrowed and copied it from Cáo Yín’s 曹寅 collection. Clearly even then it was a rarely-met-with text.

Reverently collated and submitted, sixth month, 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

The Jǐngdìng Jiànkāng zhì is the principal surviving Southern Sòng prefectural gazetteer for Jiànkāng (Nánjīng), the liúdū of the dynasty. Three layers of paratext frame the book. (1) Mǎ Guāngzǔ’s yuánxù 原序 (preface), dated the first day of the tenth month of Jǐngdìng xīnyǒu (1261), under his offices as Guānwéndiàn xuéshì, Guānglù dàfū, Yánjiāng zhìzhì dàshǐ (Yangtze military commissioner), prefect of Jiànkāng, and Jīnhuájùn kāiguógōng; (2) the jìn Jiànkāng zhì biǎo 進建康志表, Mǎ’s submission memorial, dated the eighth month of Jǐngdìng 2 (1261); (3) Zhōu Yìnghé’s Jǐngdìng xiūzhì běnmò 景定修志本末 — a remarkable methodological postface dated jiǎzǐ of the seventh month, Jǐngdìng xīnyǒu (1261), in which Zhōu narrates the four-stage editorial protocol he proposed to Mǎ: (a) dìng fánlì 定凡例 (settle the rubrics — adopting the rubric scheme of his earlier Jiānglíng zhì 江陵志, modified for Jiànkāng’s status as auxiliary capital); (b) fēn shìrèn 分事任 (distribute editorial labor — Zhōu requested ten official compilers and several gentleman-collaborators, but Mǎ refused); (c) guǎng sōufǎng 廣搜訪 (broad evidence-gathering — soliciting submissions from prefectural staff, county officers, retired worthies, military commanders, and ordinary inhabitants, with rewards for the most informative); (d) xiáng cāndìng 詳參訂 (thorough consultation and proofing — circulating drafts in purple folios zǐdài 紫袋 to consultants for marginal corrections before final printing). It is, in effect, the earliest known fánlì (compilation principles) for a Chinese local gazetteer, and Wilkinson treats it as the foundational document for the methodology of fāngzhì (Wilkinson §16.4.1).

The structure: a four-juan Liúdū lù 留都錄 (record of the auxiliary capital, prefixed at the head of the work and devoted to the imperial travel-palace, ritual installations, and imperial compositions); a dìlǐ tú 地理圖 with dìmíng biàn 地名辨; a ten-juan niánbiǎo 年表 (chronological table from year four of King Yuán of Zhōu, when the Yuè built Yuèchéng and Chánggàn, to the present, spanning 1,700 years, with the four columns shí 時 / dì 地 / rén 人 / shì 事); ten zhì 志 in 22 juan (territory 3, mountains-and-rivers 3, walls-and-gates 3, officeholders 4, schools 5, literary documents 5, defense 2, fiscal lands 2, customs 1, shrines 3); ten zhuàn 傳 categories (correct learning, filial-fraternal, integrity-and-righteousness, loyal-meritorious, upright officials, governance, elders, hidden virtue, scholarly elegance, chaste women) in three juan; and one juan of shíyí 拾遺. The total is roughly 1,600 printed leaves, 480,000 characters; print boards were stored in five locked cabinets in the Chōushūtáng with provisions for blank space at the end of every juan and category for future additions.

The preservation history is captured in the tíyào: the work survived in incomplete form through the Míng (with print boards reduced to 759 leaves at the Nánjīng Imperial College in Jiājìng–Wànlì), nearly disappeared in the early Qīng, and was recovered by Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 from Cáo Yín’s 曹寅 (1658–1712) collection by way of Zhōu Zàijùn 周在浚 (the son of the MǐngQīng transition scholar Zhōu Liànggōng 周亮工). The Wényuāngé Sìkù copy descends from this lineage. The work is listed in all three Sòng private library catalogs.

A note on dating: the catalog meta gives “宋” without a year. The compilation is precisely datable from Mǎ’s memorial (eighth month of Jǐngdìng 2 = autumn 1261) and Zhōu’s běnmò (seventh-month jiǎzǐ of Jǐngdìng 2 = 1261); both notBefore and notAfter are therefore set to 1261.

Translations and research

  • Hargett, James M. 1996. “Song dynasty local gazetteers and their place in the history of difangzhi writing.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56.2: 405–42. The standard English-language survey of extant Sòng gazetteers, listing 30 survivors; treats Jǐngdìng Jiànkāng zhì among the most fully-preserved.
  • Hargett, James M. 2004. “Historiography in Southern Song dynasty local gazetteers.” In Thomas H. C. Lee, ed., The New and the Multiple: Sung Senses of the Past, 287–306. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.
  • Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual. 6th ed. 2022. §16.4.1 (the work’s role as the first detailed fánlì); §62.3.3.2 (Sòng gazetteer corpus).
  • Gù Hóngyì 顧宏義. 2010. Sòngcháo fāngzhì kǎo 宋朝方志考. Shànghǎi gǔjí. The standard reference catalog of Sòng-period gazetteers; supersedes earlier surveys.
  • Lin, Fan. 2017. “The local in the imperial vision: Landscape, topography, and geography in Southern Song map guides and gazetteers.” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 6.2: 333–64.
  • Modern punctuated edition: in Sòng Yuán fāngzhì cóngkān 宋元方志叢刊, 8 vols., Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1990 (volumes 2–3); also in Sòng Yuán dìfāngzhì cóngshū 宋元地方志叢書, 12 vols., Dàhuá shūjú, 1978–80.

Other points of interest

The Jǐngdìng xiūzhì běnmò is a landmark in the self-conscious methodology of premodern Chinese historiography. Zhōu’s explicit recourse to the Tōngjiàn analogy (“Sīmǎ Wéngōng’s compilation of the Zīzhì tōngjiàn: 1,362 years of events in 354 juàn of book, with the help of many talented men, took nineteen years to complete; how can a single hand in two months hope to record 1,700 years for Jīnlíng?”) and his complaint that Mǎ refused to grant him additional editorial staff illuminate the institutional pressures on local gazetteer compilation in the late Southern Sòng. Zhōu invokes Zhāng Shì’s 張栻 (Nánxuān xiānshēng 南軒先生) eight-character maxim — xuēqù guàiwàng / dìngzhèng shìshí / chónghòu fēngsú / biǎozhāng réncái “Strike out the perverse and unfounded; rectify the historical record; revere and thicken local custom; signal and elevate human talent” — as the goal of the fāngzhì genre, modestly admitting that he can only meet the latter four.

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