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欽定熱河志

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Text ID
KR2k0035
Date
1781–1784
Dynasty
清

Qīndìng Rèhé zhì 欽定熱河志

Imperially Endorsed Gazetteer of Rèhé by 和珅 (奉敕撰) and 梁國治 (奉敕撰)

About the work

A 120-juan imperial gazetteer of Rèhé 熱河 (the Qīng-dynasty summer-resort administrative district centered on the Bìshǔ shānzhuāng 避暑山莊 in modern-day Chéngdé 承德, Héběi), commissioned in Qiánlóng 46 (1781) and presented to the throne by Qiánlóng 49 / 50 (1784–85). The work is structured in twenty-four mén 門: (1) Tiānzhāng 天章 (12 juan, imperial poetry and writings on Rèhé); (2) Xúndiǎn 巡典 (10 juan, imperial visits chronologically); (3) Láiyuǎn 徠遠 (2 juan, the reception of foreign embassies and tributaries); (4) Xínggōng 行宫 (20 juan, the Bìshǔ shānzhuāng gardens and the way-station palaces); (5) Wéicháng 圍場 (4 juan, the Mùlán hunting grounds); (6) Jiāngyù 疆域 (6 juan); (7) Jiànzhì yángé 建置沿革 (9 juan, including 12 maps from Zhōu through Míng); (8) Guǐdù 晷度 (1 juan, astronomy/altitude); (9) Shān 山 (4 juan); (10) Shuǐ 水 (4 juan); (11) Xuéxiào 學校 (2 juan); (12) Fānwèi 藩衛 (2 juan, on the Mongol qíji of the Rèhé jurisdiction); (13) Sìmiào 寺廟 (6 juan); (14) Wénzhì 文秩 (1 juan); (15) Bīngfáng 兵防 (1 juan); (16) Zhíguān tímíng 職官題名 (1 juan); (17) Huànjī 宦蹟 (1 juan); (18) Rénwù 人物 (3 juan); (19) Shíhuò 食貨 (1 juan); (20) Wùchǎn 物産 (5 juan); (21) Gǔjī 古蹟 (2 juan); (22) Gùshì 故事 (4 juan); (23) Wàijì 外記 (4 juan); (24) Yìwén 藝文 (14 juan). The work opens with Qiánlóng’s own preface and a jìnbiǎo 進表 by the chief editors Héshēn and Liáng Guózhì.

Tiyao

We respectfully note: the Qīndìng Rèhé zhì in 120 juan was composed in Qiánlóng 46 (1781) by imperial command. Rèhé is the ancient Wǔliè 武列 river; the Bìshǔ shānzhuāng lies here. The old administrative establishment was the Rèhé Circuit administering four sub-prefectures; now the Chéngdé prefecture has been instituted, administering the one sub-prefecture of Píngquán 平泉 and the five counties of Luánpíng 灤平, Fēngníng 豐寧, Chìfēng 赤峰, Jiànchāng 建昌, and Cháoyáng 朝陽. This gazetteer still keeps the name Rèhé because, although it is now a fǔ and xiàn establishment, this is a shéngāo (sacred and lofty) and àoqū (mysterious) place, where the imperial cortege annually descends and the great shōushòu 蒐狩 hunts and cháojǐn 朝覲 audiences are held; the dignity is too great to be subordinated to a sub-prefectural or county designation, and so the work is named after the seat of the xíngdiàn 行殿. It is divided into 24 mén: when the imperial canopy passes through, the imperial-pen output multiplies daily — these are reverently transcribed at the head, called Tiānzhāng. The provincial inspections, observations of the people, and labor of administrative diligence are arranged annalistically as Xúndiǎn. The presents of foreign envoys and the arrival of tributaries from afar — manifesting majesty and virtue — are Láiyuǎn. The mobile retinue and the audience halls erected here are Xínggōng. The Mùlán autumn hunts in their wide ranges are Wéicháng. The lands once part of the Yáo-fief domain, sometimes garrisoned, sometimes a jùnxiàn, sometimes a metropolitan center — citing the standard histories and adjudicating differences, with eight tables and twelve maps appended — are Jiànzhì yángé. The astronomical observation of the polar altitude (deleting the xīngyě 星野 talk) is Guǐdù. Great rivers as the warp, smaller rivers as the weft, are Shuǐ. The areas of geography divided by region, with topography lifted out, are Shān. The bathing of the people in the imperial transformation, given them through poetry and history, is Xuéxiào. The Mongol qíji — Karaqin, Ongnigud, Tümed, Naiman, Aohan, Bagharin, Kharachin Left Wing, and Kharkha Right Wing — within the territory, with their genealogies tabulated, is Fānwèi. The Sìmiào with their crimson-red and golden grounds, built either by imperial order or by petition, is Sìmiào. The civil service in their finger-and-arm articulation is Wénzhì. The military camps reaching down to the four banners of the Chakhar is Bīngfáng. Officials of our dynasty serving here are listed by year of appointment as Zhíguān tímíng; officers of prior dynasties whose service here can be documented are Huànjī. Lustrous-and-graceful natives whose lights left a record in history are Rénwù. The mountain-and-marsh richness, the tax-yielding fertility, are Shíhuò. Plants and animals and fishes correctly identified by category are Wùchǎn. The sites still surviving with documentary attestation are Gǔjī. Past-dynastic standing institutions are Gùshì. The miscellaneous records of the various peoples are Wàijì. Songs and poems and writings touching on the local conditions, surveying the ancient and verifying the present, distinguishing the doubtful and transmitting what is reliable, are at once precise and broad, Yìwén — a great achievement of provincial-record literature.

A note: the territory of Rèhé from before the HànWèi was XiānbēiWūhuán land. The Mùróng family, rising from Lóngchéng, first instituted jùnxiàn (the Wèi shū dìxíng zhì gives a roughly traceable account); from the QíZhōu onward it was mostly co-occupied with the Khitan Khǎkha; the front-dynastic histories puff up their territorial extent and frequently move border-region county names beyond the Long Wall, but on the actual geography this is unsupportable. Only the Liáo, Jīn, and Yuán three dynasties really controlled the territory — but their yújì lacked record. The Míng abandoned Dàníng, after which the territory was as foreign as a remote land — what is recorded is hearsay that lost the truth.

Our guójiā in its initial founding rectified the Central Plain and grasped the four seas. Tàizōng Wén Huángdì in person captured the fourteen taiji, fixing the territory; Shèngzǔ Rén Huángdì trained his qīcuì and went out from Sōngtíng — afterwards Khalkha Khan tendered his finest land, broadening the imperial preserve. Our August Emperor in like manner — taking heaven’s unceasing example, following his ancestors’ way, on the imperial progress (shímài qí bāng) — has made the territory like the three fǔ of the metropolitan area, with the four directions in greater concord, with the multiplication of products fuller, with jùnyì division and jiāoxiáng establishment, with people prosperous and customs admirable, in shining fashion the same wind as the Three Dynasties. None of this has been seen from antiquity to the present; thus the literary officers, taking pen in hand, have reverently composed this volume — also unheard of since antiquity. Is it not because this earth concealed its excellence, the heavens hid its mystery, awaiting from the opening of the universe to the present day, the holy dynasty to bring its splendor forth?

Reverently collated and submitted, eleventh month, Qiánlóng 49 (1784). 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 Qīndìng Rèhé zhì is the principal Qiánlóng-era imperial gazetteer of the Bìshǔ shānzhuāng and its surrounding territory. The commission was issued in 1781 with Héshēn 和珅 (1750–1799) and Liáng Guózhì 梁國治 (1723–1786) as principal fèngchì zhuàn 奉敕撰 (imperial-mandate compilers), the work proceeding in close consultation with the throne. Drafts were submitted in stages, the jìnbiǎo (memorial of presentation) was produced under Héshēn and Liáng’s joint signature, and the work was completed and reverently collated under the Sìkù quánshū general editorial machinery (Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅) in the eleventh month of Qiánlóng 49 (1784). Internal references date some material as late as Qiánlóng 50 / early 1785 (the work was retained in the Wényuāngé in vols. 495–496); the date bracket adopted here is 1781–1784.

The work supersedes the earlier Yōngzhèng-era Rèhé zhì (an unillustrated and incomplete forerunner) and presents the Rèhé administrative region as a xíngdiàn and cháojǐn (audience-of-tributaries) center on a par with the metropolitan fǔ. It is the canonical source for the geography, ecology, ritual architecture, and political-ceremonial history of the Mùlán Wéicháng hunting grounds and the Bìshǔ shānzhuāng — the latter listed in 1994 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The bilingual Manchu-Mongolian-Tibetan-Chinese onomastics of place names are systematically reformed using the Tóngwén yùntǒng 同文韻統 — a Qiánlóng-era phonological-orthographic project — to standardize older Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongol transcriptions, in line with the same systematic re-romanization carried out in the Sìkù-era revisions of the Liáo shǐ, Jīn shǐ, and Yuán shǐ (an enterprise itself documented at the head of KR2k0036 Qīndìng Rìxià jiùwén kǎo). The closing Yìwén (14 juan, juan 107–120) is one of the principal anthologies of Qīng imperial poetry on Rèhé and Mongolia, including substantial output by Qiánlóng himself.

The Mùlán Wéicháng matter (juan 45–48) is the major document for understanding the autumn hunt as Qīng inner-frontier ritual: 70-odd named cháng divisions over a perimeter of more than 1,300 lǐ. The four-juan Wàijì (juan 103–106) is the ethnographic catalogue of the Mongol qíji and their relations with the throne. The work was used in subsequent late-Qīng administrative re-organization of the territory and was reissued in modern facsimile editions in the late 20th and early 21st century.

Translations and research

  • Philippe Forêt, Mapping Chengde: The Qing Landscape Enterprise (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000) — the standard Western-language monograph on the Bìshǔ shānzhuāng and its political-cartographic role; uses the Qīndìng Rèhé zhì as principal primary source.
  • Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains (Paris: ERC, 1985) — major French monograph on the eight outer temples of Rèhé.
  • James A. Millward et al., eds., New Qing Imperial History: The Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde (RoutledgeCurzon, 2004) — collected volume in which the Rèhé zhì is treated as a key primary source for Qiánlóng-era inner-Asian governance.
  • Mark Elliott, Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World (Longman, 2009) — biographical synthesis citing the Rèhé zhì throughout.
  • Modern reprint: Tiānjīn Gǔjí Chūbǎnshè 天津古籍出版社, 2003 (8 vols., punctuated edition); also in Wényuāngé Sìkù yǐngyìn photographic reprint.
  • Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (6th ed., 2022), §66.5.1.3 — points to the Qīng gōng Rèhé dǎng-àn (Qing palace Rehe archives, 18 vols., Dǎng’àn Chūbǎnshè 2003) as the complementary archival corpus on Rèhé.

Other points of interest

The work is one of the earliest and most thorough sites of the Tóngwén yùntǒng re-romanization in practice: a substantial yìyǔ zǒngmù 譯語總目 (translation glossary) cross-references the older Sinitic-character transcriptions of Mongol, Manchu, Khitan, Jurchen, and Tibetan place- and personal-names against the new Qiánlóng-mandated standard. Together with KR2k0036 Qīndìng Rìxià jiùwén kǎo and KR2k0038 Qīndìng Mǎnzhōu yuánliú kǎo it is part of an interlocked Qiánlóng-era imperial geographical-historical canon for the inner-Asian frontier.

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