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武功縣志

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Text ID
KR2k0030
Date
1519–1519
Dynasty
明

Wǔgōng xiànzhì 武功縣志

Gazetteer of Wǔgōng County by 康海

About the work

A three-juan (seven-section) Míng county gazetteer of Wǔgōngxiàn 武功縣 (modern Wǔgōngxiàn in central Shaǎnxī, west of Xī’ān, then in Xī’ānfǔ; the ancestral seat of the Hòujì 后稷 / agriculture-deity tradition and the birthplace of the Wǔgōng 武功 family — the Sòng Wǔgōngjūn = the chief Northern Sòng prefectural seat of the region), composed in Zhèngdé 14 (1519) by Kāng Hǎi 康海 (1475–1540, zì Déhán 德涵, hào Duìshān 對山, native of Wǔgōng), the zhuàngyuán of Hóngzhì 15 (1502) and a major figure of the Míng “Former Seven Masters” (Qián qī zǐ 前七子) literary movement. After his disgrace in 1510 in connection with Liú Jǐn’s 劉瑾 fall, Kāng Hǎi spent the rest of his life as a literary recluse in Wǔgōng; this gazetteer is a product of that exile.

The work is a self-conscious archaism — a deliberate experiment in the spirit of the Yǔgòng and the Hàn-style zhōujùn jì — and it became one of the canonical models of “concise” (jiǎn 簡) county gazetteer-writing for the rest of the Míng and the Qīng. The Sìkù tíyào and the Sìkù editors more generally pair it with Hán Bāngjìng’s 韓邦靖 Cháoyì xiànzhì 朝邑縣志 (KR2k0031, 1522) as the two principal Míng-era models of the jiǎnzhì tradition.

Tiyao

We respectfully note: the Wǔgōng xiànzhì in three juan is by Kāng Hǎi 康海 of the Míng. Hǎi, zì Déhán 德涵, was a man of Wǔgōng. He was jìnshì of the rénxū year of Hóngzhì (1502) — first place. He was appointed Hànlínyuàn xiūzhuàn 翰林院修撰. For coming to Lǐ Mèngyáng’s 李夢陽 defense, he was implicated as a member of Liú Jǐn’s 劉瑾 faction and stripped of his official register. The Míng shǐ records his career as an appendix in the biography of Lǐ Mèngyáng in the wényuànzhuàn 文苑傳.

This gazetteer is in only seven sections: dìlǐ 地理 (geography), jiànzhì 建置 (institutional foundations), císì 祠祀 (shrines), tiánfù 田賦 (fields and taxes), guānshī 官師 (officeholders), rénwù 人物 (worthies), xuǎnjǔ 選舉 (examinations). All of mountains, rivers, walls, ancient sites, residences, and tombs are gathered under dìlǐ; offices, schools, fords, and markets are placed under jiànzhì; shrines, temples, monasteries, and Daoist abbeys are all classed under císì; population and products are appended under tiánfù; literary writings, following the precedent of the Wújùn zhì 吳郡志 [Fàn Chéngdà’s gazetteer], are scattered under the relevant entries — to remove redundancy. Officeholders are recorded with both good and ill, to embody encouragement and admonition. Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎 says that the diction is concise, the events careful, the explanatory phrasing canonical and elegant. Shí Bāngjiào 石邦教 says that the moral exposition is bright and the encouragement-and-warning especially severe — there is no finer history of one’s native village than this. This is no exaggeration.

The gazetteer was cut at Zhèngdé jǐmǎo (1519); in the Wànlì era it was cut again, and then was again dispersed and lost. In Qiánlóng 26 (1761) the magistrate of Wǔgōng, Mǎxīngā 瑪星阿, obtained a manuscript copy from Sūn Jǐngliè 孫景烈 and so re-cut it; the punctuations and detailed annotations are all from Jǐngliè’s hand, and feel quite redundant. Furthermore, Wáng Shìzhēn says that the Wǔgōng zhì contains the Xuánjī tú 璇璣圖 (the cyclic poem-pattern by Sū Huì 蘇蕙), but this copy does not have it. Investigating further: Hǎi’s grandson Lǚ Cì 吕賜 once printed the Xuánjī tú dú 璇璣圖讀, before which is a colophon: “I copied the original of my late grand-Tàishǐ’s county gazetteer, following the original layout in every respect; only the Sū poems are not copied — I dare not lightly alter, but I append a few words at the end of the copy to relate my late grand-Tàishǐ’s intent and look to future readers as a witness to my will.” So this present copy is what Lǚ Cì removed and printed afresh. Míng men were fond of altering ancient books; even the works of one’s own ancestors, descendants must perforce shuffle and alter — yōng gù wàng 庸故妄 (vulgarity, dim-witted, presumption) indeed.

Reverently collated and submitted, third month, Qiánlóng 43 (1778). 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 Wǔgōng xiànzhì is the most influential Míng county gazetteer in the jiǎn (concise) tradition and is regularly named in the company of Hán Bāngjìng’s Cháoyì xiànzhì (1522, KR2k0031) as one of the two foundational models of self-consciously archaizing local-history writing. Two prefaces are preserved in the prefatory matter:

(1) Lǚ Nán’s 呂柟 yuánxù 原序 (Lǚ Nán, 1479–1542, Jīngyě xiānshēng 涇野先生, the Guānzhōng Confucian and Cháng’ān xiānshēng; jìnshì of Zhèngdé 3 = 1508), dated the jiǎyín day of the eleventh month of Zhèngdé jǐmǎo (1519). Lǚ frames the work in the Hòujì zhī mò 后稷之墟 / Zhāng Héngqú zhī xiàng 張橫渠之象 tradition: Wǔgōng is the seat of two of the great teachers of antiquity (Hòujì of agriculture and Zhāng Zǎi 張載 = Héngqú of the Confucian Way), and the gazetteer is a Confucian moral instrument. He gives the seven sections individual ethical valuations: dìlǐ “concise without being lacunary”; jiànzhì “principled with evidential basis”; císì “the present before the ancient”; guānshī “straightforward record with embedded encouragement and warning”; rénwù “vast and inexhaustible”; xuǎnjǔ “honoring righteousness and demoting profit.” The cutter (印刻者) was the Wǔgōng magistrate Féng Yùzhòng 馮玉仲 of Sìchuān.

(2) Hé Jǐngmíng’s 何景明 (1483–1521, the great writer of the “Former Seven Masters” alongside Lǐ Mèngyáng and Kāng Hǎi himself) preface, dated the fifth day of the twelfth month of Zhèngdé 14 (1519), is one of the most powerful treatises of social history-writing in the early Míng. Hé reads Kāng Hǎi’s gazetteer as a moral diagnosis of decline: every category traces a downward trajectory (“acreage from narrow to broad; population from few to many; tax-corvée from light to heavy; expenditures from frugal to extravagant; livelihood from rich to poor; productivity from abundant to depleted; popular character from strong to weak; custom from solid to thin; magistrates from upright to corrupt; talent from substantial to hollow; learning from vibrant to slack”). Hé generalizes: “It is not only one county that is so — from this one can extrapolate to the four directions” (qǐ dú yī yì rán zāi: yóu cǐ kě yǐ lì zhū sìfāng yǐ 豈獨一邑然哉, 由此可以例諸四方矣).

The structure (3 juan, 7 sections): juan 1 — dìlǐ (with mountains, rivers, walls, ancient sites, residences, tombs all gathered); juan 2 — jiànzhì (offices, schools, fords, markets), císì (shrines and temples), tiánfù (with population and products as appendices); juan 3 — guānshī (officeholders, with ethical commentary), rénwù (worthies — the largest section), xuǎnjǔ (examination success). Literary writings are scattered as appendices, following Fàn Chéngdà’s Wújùn zhì precedent.

The Sìkù tíyào records that the original Zhèngdé 14 print included Sū Huì’s 蘇蕙 (4th-century palindromic-poem genius of Wǔgōng) Xuánjī tú — a famous early-medieval literary pattern in which a single poem can be read in multiple directions; Wáng Shìzhēn (the great Qīng critic) confirms its presence in the original. The transmitted text in the Wányuāngé Sìkù copy lacks it: this is because Kāng Hǎi’s grandson Lǚ Cì 吕賜 in editing his ancestor’s work for republication suppressed the Xuánjī tú (justifying his decision in a colophon to a separate publication of the Xuánjī tú dú). The Sìkù editors have a sharp judgment on Míng filial editorial license: “Even the works of one’s own ancestors, the descendants must perforce shuffle and alter — yōng gù wàng (vulgarity, dim-wittedness, presumption) indeed.” The Qiánlóng 26 (1761) re-printing by the Wǔgōng magistrate Mǎxīngā, edited from a manuscript provided by the Wǔgōng scholar Sūn Jǐngliè 孫景烈, is the basis of the Sìkù copy.

The work has been one of the most-praised Míng gazetteers in the long evidential-historical tradition: Wáng Shìzhēn (the late-Qīng poet-critic), Shí Bāngjiào, the Sìkù editors, and the Qing local-history theorist Zhāng Xuéchéng 章學誠 all single it out as a model.

A note on dating: Lǚ Nán’s preface is dated the jiǎyín day of the eleventh month of Zhèngdé 14 (1519); Hé Jǐngmíng’s preface is dated the fifth day of the twelfth month of the same year. Both notBefore and notAfter are set to 1519.

Translations and research

  • Goodrich, L. Carrington, and Chao-ying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644. New York: Columbia, 1976. Vol. 1, 692–94 (Kāng Hǎi entry by L. Carrington Goodrich). Treats the Wǔgōng xiànzhì in the context of Kāng’s literary career and exile.
  • Yang, Shao-yun. 2019. “Local pride and dynastic loyalty: The Yuan-Ming transition in the Han River valley.” Discusses Northwest gazetteer ecology including Kāng Hǎi’s circle.
  • Zhāng Xuéchéng 章學誠 (1738–1801). Wén-shǐ tōng-yì 文史通義 (Outer chapters), repeated discussion of Kāng Hǎi’s Wǔgōng zhì as a model of jiǎn gazetteer-writing.
  • Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual. 6th ed. 2022. §§16.4.1, 65.3.3.1.
  • Modern punctuated edition: in Tiānyī-gé cáng Míngdài fāngzhì xuǎn-kān 天一閣藏明代方志選刊 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1981–82), and in Sìkù quánshū zhēnběn. The Qiánlóng 1761 Mǎ-xīng-ā re-cut survives in several library copies.
  • Hargett, James M. 1996. “Song dynasty local gazetteers and their place in the history of difangzhi writing.” HJAS 56.2: 405–42.

Other points of interest

The work’s structure of seven sections (qī piān 七篇) is itself a deliberate archaism: it follows the implicit organization of the Yǔgòng and Hàn Hànshū Dìlǐzhì, refusing the elaborate 30+ rubric scheme that had become standard in late-Sòng and Míng prefectural gazetteers. Hé Jǐngmíng’s preface is one of the most important early-Míng statements of historical-decline theory, anticipating later Qīng evidential reflections on the relationship between local history and dynastic moral fate. The lost Xuánjī tú — Sū Huì’s 4th-century palindromic poem-mosaic — is one of the most famous lost-and-restored documents in the early-modern Chinese gazetteer-philological tradition.

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