江西通志

Jiāngxī tōngzhì 江西通志

Comprehensive Gazetteer of Jiāngxī supervised by 謝旻 (Xiè Mín, d. 1751) — jiānxiū 監修 compiled by 陶成 (Táo Chéng, fl. early 18th c.) — biānzuǎn 編纂

About the work

The Yōngzhèng-era provincial gazetteer of Jiāngxī, in 162 juan. Commissioned in response to the Yōngzhèng 7 (1729) edict; editorial bureau opened by the Jiāngxī governor Xiè Mín 謝旻 at the provincial seat in Yōngzhèng 8/3 (1730/3) and brought to completion in Yōngzhèng 10/4 (1732/4) — making this the most rapidly executed of the major Yōngzhèng provincial gazetteers (a 25-month run, against the four to seven years required for the LiǎngJiāng, Zhèjiāng, Shānxī, and Húguǎng works). The principal biānzuǎn was Táo Chéng 陶成, formerly a Hanlin jiǎntǎo 檢討, with associate compilation under the supervisor of education Fù Wánglù 傅王露 (then on second-degree demotion). Presentation memorial dated Yōngzhèng 10 (1732), countersigned by the acting LiǎngJiāng governor-general Yǐn Jìshàn 尹繼善 (concurrent Sūzhōu governor) and Xiè Mín. The work draws on a deep stratum of earlier Jiāngxī provincial gazetteers culminating in Bái Huáng’s 白潢 Xījiāng zhì 西江志 of Kāngxī 59 (1720), to which the Sìkù tíyào explicitly traces its substantive descent.

Tiyao

We respectfully note: the Jiāngxī tōngzhì in 162 juan is supervised by Xiè Mín 謝旻, Governor of Jiāngxī and Right Vice Censor-in-Chief, and others. The provincial gazetteer of Jiāngxī originated in the Jiājìng era of the Míng with the Provincial Administration Commissioner Lín Tíng’ǎng 林庭㭿; thereafter it was for a long time not re-compiled and the old materials were dispersed. Coming to our dynasty, in the twenty-second year of Kāngxī (1683) the Governor Ān Shìdǐng 安世鼎 began a continuation; in the fifty-ninth year of Kāngxī (1720) the Governor Bái Huáng 白璜 [recte: 白潢] further enlarged it under the title Xījiāng zhì 西江志. Although its categorical structure mostly follows the older gazetteers, the breadth of its inquiry and its corrections of misreadings and errors have caused it to be ranked among the better local-history works.

In the seventh year of Yōngzhèng (1729) the Governor Xiè Mín, having reverently received the imperial decree to revise the provincial gazetteer, opened an editorial bureau together with the former Hanlin jiǎntǎo Táo Chéng 陶成 and others. The shape of the work follows substantively that of Bái Huáng’s gazetteer, but with intermittent adjustments; the diction is plain and the matter substantial, the arrangement orderly throughout. In the Rénwù 人物 (Persons) section, two cases stand out: the Sòng Chancellor Jīng Táng 京鏜 — for as Chancellor he attached himself to the powerful villain (Hán Tuōzhòu 韓侂冑) — and Zhāng Jiàn 章鑑 — for as Grand Counsellor he abandoned the throne and fled secretly — are both struck out and not entered, which accords well with grand principle.

The one slip is that of Liú Bǐngzhōng 劉秉忠 of the Yuán: his ancestral lineage, although originally from Ruìzhōu 瑞州, had migrated north under the Liáo and Jīn long since; nevertheless the present gazetteer, citing his ancestral registration, has admitted him among the local worthies (xiāngxián 鄉賢). On this principle, since Confucius described himself as “of Yīn”, may we now also enter him in the gazetteer of Central Provinces (Zhōngzhōu 中州)? This is the lingering habit of the túchéng 圖經 tradition, not yet fully purged.

Reverently collated and submitted, first month, Qiánlóng 46 (1781).

(Editorial note: The tíyào writes the Kāngxī 59 governor as 白潢; the printed text of the present source carries 白璜, a graphic variant for the same official Bái Huáng, presumed lifedates 1660–1737, qǐbāoyī of the Bordered Yellow Banner.)

Abstract

The Jiāngxī tōngzhì of Yōngzhèng 8–10 (1730–1732) succeeds five earlier MíngQīng provincial gazetteers of Jiāngxī, the chain reconstructed in the Sìkù tíyào and confirmed by the work’s own jìnbiǎo (presentation memorial) preserved at the head of the present juàn 0:

1. The Jiājìng-era Jiāngxī tōngzhì by the Provincial Administration Commissioner Lín Tíng’ǎng 林庭㭿 (i.e. the Jiājìng Jiāngxī tōngzhì in 37 juan, 1556 — corresponding to the separate Sìkù entry KR2k0027 for Jiājìng Jiāngxī tōngzhì).
2. A Wànlì-era continuation (lost in transmission).
3. The Kāngxī 22 (1683) revision under the Jiāngxī governor Ān Shìdǐng.
4. The Kāngxī 59 (1720) revision under Bái Huáng/Bái Huáng 白潢, titled Xījiāng zhì in 206 juan — much esteemed at the time.
5. The present Yōngzhèng 10 (1732) revision under Xiè Mín, in 162 juan.

The jìnbiǎo dates the editorial bureau as opening in Yōngzhèng 8/3 (1730/3) and closing with completion in Yōngzhèng 10/4 (1732/4), under the Jiāngxī governor Xiè Mín. The principal compiler was Táo Chéng 陶成 (former Hanlin jiǎntǎo); the senior co-supervisors (zǒngcái) were the LiǎngJiāng governor-general Gāo Qízhuō 高其倬, the acting LiǎngJiāng governor-general (concurrent Sūzhōu governor) Yǐn Jìshàn 尹繼善, and Xiè Mín himself; xiécái (junior co-supervisor) was Fù Wánglù 傅王露, formerly Hanlin biānxiū and Jiāngxī education commissioner. The work maps Jiāngxī’s “agriculture and schools” through “ninety years of [Qīng] cultivation” and its “thirteen prefectures” of military and customs garrisons; the Yìwén section runs fù 賦, shī 詩 (juan 147–158), with cí yú 詞餘 appended; closes with Zájì 雜記 (juan 159–162). Sub-categories include Yúdì 輿地, Shānchuān 山川, Hèqú 河渠, Tiánfù 田賦, Xuéxiào 學校, Wǔbèi 武備, Zhíguān 職官, Xuǎnjǔ 選舉, Rénwù 人物, Yìwén 藝文, Zájì 雜記.

The Sìkù editors give the work mixed but mostly favourable marks: praise for the editorial decision to expel the Sòng “traitor-ministers” Jīng Táng 京鏜 and Zhāng Jiàn 章鑑 from the Rénwù section on principled grounds; criticism for the inclusion of the Yuán figure Liú Bǐngzhōng 劉秉忠 by ancestral registration despite his line’s longstanding northern domicile, an inclusion that the tíyào characterises as a vestige of the older túchéng (illustrated-classic) tradition.

The work was superseded as a working reference by Liú Yìzhāo’s 劉繹 Tóngzhì Jiāngxī tōngzhì of 1881 in 180 juan, but the Yōngzhèng Jiāngxī tōngzhì remains the principal Qīng-era documentary baseline for Jiāngxī’s eighteenth-century geography and administration.

Translations and research

No English translation. The work is widely cited in Western scholarship on Jiāngxī’s eighteenth-century economy, religion, and gentry society, including: Stephen C. Averill, Revolution in the Highlands: China’s Jinggangshan Base Area (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); David Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong (Oxford, 1986) for cognate Jiāngxī village-society materials; Sūn Yǔnshēng 孫運生, Qīngdài Jiāngxī jīngjì shǐ 清代江西經濟史 (Jiāngxī rénmín, 1995); and Liú Tiánjiā 劉天佳, Qīngdài Jiāngxī shèhuì shǐ yánjiū 清代江西社會史研究 (Bookman, 2009). Pierre-Étienne Will, Chinese Local Gazetteers: An Historical and Practical Introduction (1992) is the standard methodological framework. The work figures prominently in Wilkinson’s general account of provincial-gazetteer historiography (§16.4.1, §66.4.3.4).

Other points of interest

The work’s editorial decision to remove the Sòng “loyalist-failures” Jīng Táng and Zhāng Jiàn from the Rénwù section is one of the more methodologically explicit statements of biānsè zhī yì 褒貶之義 (the principle of praise and blame in historical writing) in any Yōngzhèng-era provincial gazetteer, and is singled out for approving comment by the Sìkù editors. The tíyào of this work also contains an explicit critique of older túchéng-tradition usage of ancestral registration in xiāngxián 鄉賢 lists.

Links

• Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào
• Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11062857 (江西通志)
• Will, Chinese Local Gazetteers (1992).