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至大金陵新志

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Text ID
KR2k0027
Date
1343–1344
Dynasty
元

Zhìdà Jīnlíng xīnzhì 至大金陵新志

New Gazetteer of Jīnlíng (Jǐqìng-lù = Nanjing), [compiled in the] Zhì-(zhèng) [reign-period] by 張鉉

About the work

A 15-juan Yuán prefectural gazetteer of Jǐqìnglù 集慶路 (formerly Jiànkāng — modern Nánjīng), compiled by Zhāng Xuàn 張鉉 (zì Yòngdǐng 用鼎, native of Shaǎnxī, shānzhǎng of the Xuégǔ shūyuàn 學古書院 in Fèngyuánlù 奉元路) in the summer through twelfth month of Zhìzhèng 3 (1343), under the patronage of the Jiāngnánzhūdào xíng yùshǐtái (Southern Branch Censorate) and printed by the Jǐqìnglù school printing-house in Zhìzhèng 4 (1344). The work is the principal continuation of Zhōu Yìnghé’s Jǐngdìng Jiànkāng zhì (KR2k0021) of 1261, covering the seventy-odd years from the Mongol conquest (Zhìyuán bǐngzǐ = 1276) through 1343, and is the foundational gazetteer-record of late Yuán Nánjīng on the eve of the Míng founding.

A note on the title: the Sìkù catalog title Zhìdà 至大 is a long-transmitted error (the Zhìdà reign was 1308–11, two reigns earlier than the work). The correct title is Zhìzhèng Jīnlíng xīnzhì 至正金陵新志, named after the Zhìzhèng reign (1341–70) in which the work was compiled and printed; the correction is universal in modern scholarship. The Sìkù tíyào itself plainly states that “early in Zhìzhèng (1341+), the various ministers of the Jiāngnán Branch Censorate proposed to reprint Zhōu Yìnghé’s [Sòng] Jiànkāng zhì…” — making the Zhìzhèng dating unambiguous from the tíyào’s own argument. We retain the catalog title here for index consistency but flag the error.

Tiyao

We respectfully note: the Zhìdà Jīnlíng xīnzhì in fifteen juan is by Zhāng Xuàn 張鉉 of the Yuán. Xuàn, zì Yòngdǐng 用鼎, was a man of Shaǎnxī. He once served as shānzhǎng of the Xuégǔ shūyuàn 學古書院 of Fèngyuánlù 奉元路 (modern Xī’ān). Early in Zhìzhèng, the various officials of the Jiāngnánzhūdào xíng yùshǐtái proposed to reprint the Sòng Jiànkāng zhì compiled by Zhōu Yìnghé; but that book ended in the Jǐngdìng era. The seventy or eighty years of subsequent records were defective. Although the prefectural-man Qī Guāng 戚光 had revised it during the Zhìshùn era (1330–32) as the Jíqìng xùzhì 集慶續志, his work was capricious and altered the older order in many places, and was not detailed and careful. Hence they further proposed to add and edit it as a continuation of the Jǐngdìng zhì, and on this account they invited Xuàn to lead the work. In six months the book was complete: first the túkǎo 圖考 (illustrated investigations); then the tōngjì 通紀 (comprehensive chronicles); next the shìbiǎo dàibiǎo 世表代表 (genealogical and reign tables); next the zhì pǔ lièzhuàn 志譜列傳 (treatises, genealogies, and biographies); concluding with the zhíyí lùnbiàn 摭遺論辨 (gleanings and disquisitions). It was ordered to be cut in print blocks at the Jǐqìnglù prefectural school. Down to the Míng Jiājìng era, when Huáng Zuǒ 黃佐 was compiling the Nán Yōng zhì 南雍志, this book’s print boards were still recorded — 1,164 leaves; the printed copies in current circulation derive from this original cutting.

The work follows roughly the fánlì 凡例 of Zhōu’s gazetteer; for Yuán-period institutional history it draws on Qī Guāng’s Xùzhì and on reports submitted by the lù, zhōu, sī, and xiàn. As regards official rosters that already appear in the previous gazetteer, the names are not registered again; but the shìpǔ lièzhuàn (genealogies and biographies), although already in the previous gazetteer, are still loaded in without omission — the rubric is internally inconsistent on this point. Also, in the fánlì, Xuàn faults Qī’s revision for having deleted the maps as “in violation of the ancient principle” — and he is right. As for the genealogical-and-reign tables: this is local-gazetteer work, distinct in nature from imperial historiography; there is no need to imitate the pángxíng xiéshàng 旁行斜上 (lateral and sloping) format of imperial dynastic-history tables, which only spreads the record over too many surfaces with no firm anchor — Qī’s revision in deleting these tables is in fact deeply consistent with the proper rubric. For Xuàn to dismiss it wholesale is therefore evidence of narrow knowledge.

But because his learning is broad and elegant, the assemblage of materials is rich, the běnmò 本末 (origins and outcomes) are luminous, and his work is free of the diffuse and unsystematic faults of later gazetteer authors. In his gǔjì 古蹟 section, the two stelae of Liáng — the Shǐxīng Zhōngwǔwáng bēi 始興忠武王碑 and the Ānchéng Kāngwáng bēi 安城康王碑 — were both written about by Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 in colophons, but Zhū does not cite this work as evidence — perhaps he had simply not seen it.

Reverently collated and submitted, twelfth 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 (Zhìzhèng) Jīnlíng xīnzhì is the principal extant Yuán prefectural gazetteer of Nánjīng — the second great gazetteer of the city, eight decades after Zhōu Yìnghé’s Jǐngdìng Jiànkāng zhì of 1261 (KR2k0021). The compilation history is unusually well-documented in the prefatory matter, which preserves: (a) Suǒ Yuándài’s 索元岱 yuánxù 原序 dated the first day of the fourth month of Zhìzhèng 4 (jiǎshēn = 1344), looking back on the previous spring when he had seen Zhāng Xuàn’s first draft; (b) the Xiūzhì wényí 修志文移 — a substantial dossier of administrative correspondence between the Jiāngnán Branch Censorate, the Jǐqìnglù zǒngguǎnfǔ, and the prefectural school recording every step of the commissioning, hiring, payment, and printing of the work; (c) a detailed list of compiling and editing offices, with the names of every Yuán prefectural officer involved (uniquely useful for prosopography of mid-fourteenth-century Yuán bureaucracy); (d) Zhāng Xuàn’s own Xiūzhì běnmò 修志本末 — a methodological postface modeled explicitly on Zhōu Yìnghé’s earlier běnmò in the Jǐngdìng zhì; and (e) a citation list of 80+ sources used.

The administrative correspondence reveals that the work was first proposed as a simple reprint of Zhōu’s gazetteer, then expanded to include the seventy-eight years of post-Sòng material, in part because of dissatisfaction with the prefectural-man Qī Guāng’s earlier Jíqìng xùzhì (Zhìshùn era, 1330–32 — now lost). Zhāng Xuàn was identified by reputation through the prefectural school’s Mingdào shūyuàn 明道書院 shānzhǎng Fáng [Hài] 房[海] and was formally invited with ceremonial gifts by the prefectural judge Zhōu Yáo 周垚. He arrived at the editorial bureau on the tenth day of the fifth month of Zhìzhèng 3 (1343), completed compilation by the fifteenth of the tenth month, and the work was finalized for printing on the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the same year — six months total. The print blocks were distributed across four institutions: 5 juan at the Lìyángzhōu school, 3 juan at the Lìshuǐzhōu school, 3 juan at the Míngdào shūyuàn, and 2 juan at the Jǐqìnglù prefectural school; the prefatory text and illustrations were also at the Jǐqìnglù school. Total cost: 143 dìng 23 liǎng 8 qián 9 fēn 9 lí of Zhōngtǒng chāo 中統鈔 paper currency.

The structure (15 juan): (1) Túkǎo 圖考 (mountain-and-river, prefectural, official-residence, and ancient-site illustrations, with each illustration accompanied by yángé historical-evolution notes); (2) Tōngjì 通紀 (a comprehensive chronicle); (3) Shìbiǎo 世表 and Dàibiǎo 代表 (genealogical and reign-by-reign tables, modeled on the Chūnqiū); (4) Zhì 志 (territorial, military, fiscal, ritual, school, etc. — the bulk of the work); (5) Pǔlièzhuàn 譜列傳 (genealogies and biographies); (6) Zhíyí lùnbiàn 摭遺論辨 (gleanings and disquisitions, including a re-evaluation of the Liáng Shǐxīng and Ānchéng stelae).

The fánlì explicitly subordinates the work to Zhōu Yìnghé’s of 1261: “the present gazetteer follows in outline the fánlì compiled by Zhōu Yìnghé in the xīnyǒu year of Jǐngdìng (1261)…” The chronological table runs from year four of King Yuán of Zhōu (473 BCE — when the Yuè minister Fàn Lí built Chánggàn) to Zhìzhèng guǐwèi (1343), spanning 1,815 years — directly extending Zhōu’s earlier 1,700-year frame. The Sìkù editors register one structural inconsistency: official rosters already in the Jǐngdìng zhì are not repeated, but biographical entries are repeated — a self-contradicting rubric.

The work draws extensively on Qī Guāng’s now-lost Jíqìng xùzhì (Zhìshùn 至順 1, 1330) and on reports submitted by the constituent counties. Its citation list of 80+ sources is one of the most substantial of any premodern gazetteer and is itself a significant document in the bibliographic history of SòngYuán Jiāngnán letters.

A note on dating: compilation summer–winter 1343 (Zhìzhèng 3); printing in 1344 (Zhìzhèng 4); first preface dated 1344. notBefore 1343, notAfter 1344.

Translations and research

  • Zhāng Lè-fēn 張樂芬 and Lǐ Xīnfēng 李新峰. Zhìzhèng Jīnlíng xīn-zhì jiào-jì 至正金陵新志校輯. Nánjīng: Nánjīng chūbǎnshè, 1991. The standard modern critical edition with full collation against the Yuán Zhìzhèng 4 Jǐqìng-lù printing, the Míng Zhèngdé 15 (1520) supplementary printing, and various Qīng manuscript copies.
  • Hargett, James M. 1996. “Song dynasty local gazetteers and their place in the history of difangzhi writing.” HJAS 56.2: 405–42. Background on the Sòng-Yuán continuum into which this work falls.
  • Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual. 6th ed. 2022. §§16.4.1, 64.3.3.1.
  • Zhái Xīnmíng 翟新明. 2024. “Sòng Yuán lèishū, fāngzhì, shíkè suǒjiàn shūmù jí qí zǒngjí wénxiàn zhùlù” 〈宋元類書、方志、石刻所見書目及其總集文獻著錄〉. Bǎohuáng 抱獢 58.1: 1–43. Treats the citation list of the work as a major bibliographical witness.
  • Comparative study with Zhīshùn Zhènjiāng zhì: Lǐ Hè-jiā 李和家 (CORE pdf 41691526), “Zhìzhèng Jīnlíng xīn-zhì yǔ Zhìshùn Zhènjiāng zhì zhī bǐjiào” — focused on the institutional and prosopographic data.
  • Modern punctuated edition: in Sòng Yuán fāngzhì cóngkān 宋元方志叢刊 (Zhōnghuá, 1990), vol. 6.

Other points of interest

The Xiūzhì wényí (administrative dossier) is one of the very few surviving documentary records of how a fourteenth-century Chinese local gazetteer was actually commissioned, paid for, and produced — including the explicit ceremonial protocol for “inviting a famous scholar with offerings of ceremonial silks” (lǐbì díngqǐng 禮幣敦請), the four-way distribution of print blocks across school-district printing offices, the precise accounting of paper-currency costs, and the names of every officer involved. As a documentary witness it has no real parallel in the Yuán gazetteer corpus.

The work’s title-page error (Zhìdà for Zhìzhèng) is a useful reminder that even Sìkù catalog titles can transmit long-standing textual slips; modern scholarship has long since corrected the citation form. The error appears not to derive from confusion with the Yuán Zhìdà reign per se, but rather from an early scribal substitution of the more common character 大 (dà) for the less stable 正 (zhèng).

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