Jiāngnán tōngzhì 江南通志
Comprehensive Gazetteer of Jiāngnán supervised by 趙宏恩 (Zhào Hóng’ēn, fl. 1730s–1740s) — jiānxiū 監修 compiled by 黃之雋 (Huáng Zhījùn, 1668–1748) — biānzuǎn 編纂
About the work
The YōngzhèngQiánlóng provincial gazetteer of “Jiāngnán” (JiāngNánshěng 江南省, the supra-province formed in 1645 from the Míng Nán Zhílì and dissolved into Jiāngsū and Ānhuī in 1667 but retained as a unified administrative-geographical category for purposes of the LiǎngJiāng governor-generalship), in 200 juan. Compilation began in the winter of Yōngzhèng 9 (1731/12) at Jiāngníng 江寧 (Nánjīng) under the biānzuǎn Huáng Zhījùn 黃之雋 (formerly zhōngyǔn 中允 in the Hanlin), revising the Kāngxī 22 (1683) provincial gazetteer in 76 juan originally compiled under Yú Chénglóng 于成龍 with the Jiāngsū governor Yú Guózhù 余國柱 and the Ānhuī governor Xú Guóxiāng 徐國相. The work ran for five years and was completed in Qiánlóng 1 (1736), presented to the throne by the then LiǎngJiāng governor-general Zhào Hóng’ēn 趙宏恩 together with the Jiāngsū governor Gù Cóng 顧琮 and the Ānhuī governor Zhào Guólín 趙國麟. The structure runs Yúdì 輿地, Héqú 河渠, Shíhuò 食貨, Xuéxiào 學校, Wǔbèi 武備, Zhíguān 職官, Xuǎnjǔ 選舉, Rénwù 人物, Yìwén 藝文, and Záléi 雜類. The Sìkù re-collation is dated Qiánlóng 44/11 (December 1779).
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Jiāngnán tōngzhì in 200 juan is supervised by Zhào Hóng’ēn 趙宏恩, Minister of War and Governor-General of LiǎngJiāng, and others. Earlier, in the twenty-second year of Kāngxī (1683), the Governor-General Yú Chénglóng 于成龍, together with the Jiāngsū governor Yú Guózhù 余國柱 and the Ānhuī governor Xú Guóxiāng 徐國相 and others, undertaking a Board edict, first compiled a provincial gazetteer in 76 juan. In the seventh year of Yōngzhèng (1729) the acting LiǎngJiāng governor-general Yǐn Jìshàn 尹繼善 and others received the imperial decree to revise it. Accordingly, in the winter of the ninth year of Yōngzhèng (1731), an editorial bureau was opened at Jiāngníng (Nánjīng), and the former Hanlin compiler-editor (zhōngyǔn 中允) Huáng Zhījùn 黃之雋 and others were entrusted with the task. Working from the old gazetteer, they discussed and refined it, expunging contradictions, plugging the gaps. After five years had elapsed, the book was completed in the first year of Qiánlóng (1736); the Governor-General Zhào Hóng’ēn, together with the Jiāngsū governor Gù Cóng 顧琮 and the Ānhuī governor Zhào Guólín 趙國麟, presented it to the throne. The opening juàn respectfully record the imperial edicts and imperial compositions in honour of the imperial canons; thereafter come, in turn: Yúdì (Geography), Héqú (Waterways), Shíhuò (Economy), Xuéxiào (Schools), Wǔbèi (Military Defence), Zhíguān (Offices), Xuǎnjǔ (Examinations), Rénwù (Persons), Yìwén (Letters), and Záléi (Miscellany). Compared with the earlier gazetteer, the design and execution show considerable structure.
The one defect is that the compilation did not issue from a single hand, and so the book is in places self-contradictory. Huáng Zhījùn, in his Tángtángjí 𢆉 (㽛?) 堂集 (a printer’s typographical infelicity in the source) — i.e. his Tāngtáng jí 𢇬堂集 — has himself observed that the cut version of the work differs from his own original draft in many places. For instance, Mount Qián 灊山 stands within Huòshān 霍山 of Lùānzhōu 六安州, but the printed text still asserts it is identical with the Qiánshānxiàn 潛山縣 set up under the Yuán; Huáng Jī 黃積 and Chéng Yuántán 程元譚, who were both Eastern-Jìn governors of Xīnān 新安, are mistakenly placed in the Western Jìn; and there are many other lacunae and duplications, all introduced by other hands after Huáng had withdrawn from the bureau. (When Sīmǎ Guāng 司馬光 compiled the Zīzhì tōngjiàn, he assigned the Shǐjì-and-after to Liú Bān 劉攽, the post-Three-Kingdoms portion to Liú Shù 劉恕, and the post-Táng portion to Fàn Zǔyǔ 范祖禹, never altering this distribution. Did Huáng grasp this principle?)
Reverently collated and submitted, eleventh month, Qiánlóng 44 (December 1779).
(Editorial note: The catalog meta records the supervising official’s name as 趙田恩, plainly a transcription slip for 趙宏恩, the well-attested LiǎngJiāng governor-general of the period; the form 趙宏恩 is unanimous in the tíyào, the imperial presentation memorial, and all standard biographical sources. Followed here.)
Abstract
The Jiāngnán tōngzhì of Yōngzhèng 9 – Qiánlóng 1 (1731–1736) succeeds two earlier provincial gazetteers — the Wànlì Jiāngnán tōngzhì of 1639 (76 juan) compiled under the LiǎngJiāng governor Wáng Yīhóng 王一弘 (preface by Wáng Xīnmìng 王新命 reprinted as the first yuán xù in the present edition), and the Kāngxī 22 (1683) gazetteer in 76 juan compiled under Yú Chénglóng 于成龍 (preface by Yú himself reprinted as the second yuán xù; and a further preface by Jìn Fǔ 靳輔, the great Yellow-River hydraulic specialist, also preserved). The Yōngzhèng-era revision was launched on the strength of the empire-wide gazetteer edict of Yōngzhèng 7 (1729) — the same decree that produced (KR2k0041) and (KR2k0044) — but compilation only got under way in the winter of Yōngzhèng 9 (1731), when the editorial bureau was opened at Jiāngníng under Yǐn Jìshàn 尹繼善’s acting governor-generalship. The principal biānzuǎn was Huáng Zhījùn 黃之雋 (1668–1748), Huátíng 華亭 native, jìnshì of Kāngxī 60 (1721), former zhōngyǔn in the Hanlin, and a leading literatus of the early Qiánlóng era. Huáng’s signed contribution covered the bulk of the project until his withdrawal; by his own admission in the Tángtángjí (堂集), the printed text departs from his draft in many particulars where unnamed hands subsequently revised the manuscript.
The work was presented to the throne in Qiánlóng 1 (1736) by Zhào Hóng’ēn 趙宏恩 (governor-general of LiǎngJiāng), Gù Cóng 顧琮 (Jiāngsū governor), and Zhào Guólín 趙國麟 (Ānhuī governor). The Sìkù editors, while crediting the work with structural coherence beyond the older gazetteer, are unusually candid about its compositional flaws — the tíyào lists three concrete examples (the Qiánshān/Huòshān confusion, the misdating of Huáng Jī and Chéng Yuántán, and unspecified duplications) and explicitly draws the contrast with Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōngjiàn method of allotting whole epochs to single hands. The 200-juan extent reflects the unusual scale of the LiǎngJiāng region (Jiāngsū plus Ānhuī, the most populous and economically dominant macroregion of Qīng China) and is exceeded among Yōngzhèng provincial gazetteers only by the 280-juan Zhèjiāng tōngzhì (KR2k0044) and the 230-juan Shānxī tōngzhì (KR2k0049).
The Yōngzhèng Jiāngnán tōngzhì was superseded as a working reference by the Guāngxù provincial gazetteers of Jiāngsū and Ānhuī issued separately in the late nineteenth century, but it remains the definitive Qīng-era documentary baseline for the unified Jiāngnán region prior to its administrative bifurcation hardening at the close of the Yōngzhèng reign.
Translations and research
No English translation. The work is one of the most heavily exploited Qīng provincial gazetteers in modern scholarship on Jiāngnán economic, social, and cultural history. Pierre-Étienne Will, Chinese Local Gazetteers: An Historical and Practical Introduction (1992) provides the methodological framework. The work figures in essentially every modern monograph on Yōngzhèng-Qiánlóng Jiāngnán, including Gōnghuáng-Mǐng 龔皇銘 [Philip Kuhn], Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Harvard, 1990); William T. Rowe, Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford, 2001); Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550–1850 (Harvard, 2004). For Huáng Zhījùn’s literary career and the reconstruction of his draft from the Tángtáng-jí, see Yán Dí-chāng 嚴迪昌, Qīng cí shǐ 清詞史 (Jiāngsū gǔjí, 1990) and the entries in Qīngdài shīwén jí huìbiān 清代詩文集彙編 (Shanghai gǔjí, 2010).
Other points of interest
Huáng Zhījùn’s Tángtángjí 堂集 — a literary collection by the principal biānzuǎn — preserves a critical record of his original compilation as it stood before later editors revised it; the Sìkù tíyào itself flags this as the proper textual reference for distinguishing his hand from the printed redaction. The tíyào’s rare use of named criticism here is itself a methodological gem: it singles out the contradiction between editorial unity (Sīmǎ Guāng method) and bureaucratic compilation by committee, in terms applicable to virtually all Qīng official compilations.
Links
- Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2916167 (江南通志)
- Will, Chinese Local Gazetteers (1992).