河南通志

Hénán tōngzhì 河南通志

Comprehensive Gazetteer of Hénán supervised by 田文鏡 (Tián Wénjìng, 1662–1732) and 王士俊 (Wáng Shìjùn, 1694–1756) — successive jiānxiū 監修 compiled by 孫灝 (Sūn Hào, 1700–1766) and 顧棟高 (Gù Dònggāo, 1679–1759) — biānzuǎn 編纂

About the work

The Yōngzhèng-era provincial gazetteer of Hénán, in 80 juan. The project was launched on Yōngzhèng 9 (1731) under the Hédōng (河東; HénánShāndōng) Governor-General Tián Wénjìng 田文鏡 — the most famously rigorous of Yōngzhèng’s three favourite ministers — who engaged the Hanlin compiler Sūn Hào 孫灝 and the jìnshì Gù Dònggāo 顧棟高 (the future Chūnqiū scholar) as principal biānzuǎn. The work was carried forward after Tián’s death in office (Yōngzhèng 10/12 = early 1733) by his successor Wáng Shìjùn 王士俊, who completed it in Yōngzhèng 13 (1735) and presented the finished version with the jìnbiǎo (presentation memorial) preserved here. The block-cutting was concluded just as a wave of Yōngzhèng-end administrative changes (Chénzhōu 陳州 and Xǔzhōu 許州 raised to fǔ; Zhèngzhōu 鄭州 transferred to Kāifēng; Lúshì 盧氏 transferred to Shǎnzhōu; Náncháo 南召 re-established as a county) overtook the text — these changes had to be left as notations.

Tiyao

We respectfully note: the Hénán tōngzhì in 80 juan is by Wáng Shìjùn 王士俊, Governor-General for the Military Affairs of Hénán and Shāndōng, Right Vice Minister of War, and others. The name “Hénán” in the Sòng denoted only one prefecture, Luòyáng; for that reason Sòng Mǐnqiú’s 宋敏求 Hénán zhì 河南志 records only the antiquities of the western capital and not the other regions. From the early Míng, when the Hénán Provincial Administration Commission was established with eight prefectures under it (extending considerably beyond the Yellow River), the territorial limits and administrative divisions departed somewhat from antiquity; thus, while the constituent prefectures and counties had each their own partial records, no work had yet brought them into a single book. In the Jiājìng era (1522–1566) one was first attempted, but it gave only a rough outline, and its citations were neither comprehensive nor its evidentiary work careful.

In the eighteenth year of Shùnzhì (1661) of our dynasty, a continuation was undertaken, with reasonable structural adequacy. Huáng Zhījùn 黃之雋 [the biānzuǎn of Jiāngnán tōngzhì — see KR2k0042] reports that in the Kāngxī era this version was promulgated as a model for the empire. Sixty-some years later, however, it had not been re-edited; juxtaposed with the changing administrative geography, the old text had fallen out of step with the new arrangements in many respects.

In the ninth year of Yōngzhèng (1731) the Governor-General Tián Wénjìng 田文鏡, having received the imperial command, undertook the editing; he engaged the [Hanlin] compiler Sūn Hào 孫灝 and the jìnshì Gù Dònggāo 顧棟高 and others, and opened an editorial bureau to gather and discuss the materials. After Tián’s death, Wáng Shìjùn 王士俊 succeeded him as Governor-General, and at length completed the book and presented it. Investigating antiquity and verifying the present, its editorial frame is fairly tightly drawn. After the work was completed, however, two prefectures — Chén 陳 and Xǔ 許 — were elevated to fǔ status; Zhèngzhōu 鄭州 was transferred to Kāifēng’s jurisdiction; Lúshì 盧氏 was transferred to Shǎnzhōu; Náncháo 南召 had its county-government re-established. Because the wood-blocks had already been completed at cutting, none of these changes could be incorporated; we have for the present therefore taken the work as it stands.

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

(Editorial note: The catalog meta lists 田文鏡 and 王士俊 as joint jiānxiū and 孫灝 and 顧棟高 as joint biānzuǎn. The Sìkù tíyào names Wáng Shìjùn alone on the title-line because of the convention noted in KR2k0041’s tíyào — only the supervising official on the actual presentation memorial is named. The catalog meta’s fourfold listing is followed here in the frontmatter.)

Abstract

The Hénán tōngzhì of Yōngzhèng 9–13 (1731–1735) succeeds three principal earlier provincial gazetteers of the region:

1. The Sòng Hénán zhì of Sòng Mǐnqiú 宋敏求 (1019–1079) — covering only Luòyáng, the Northern-Sòng “Western Capital”, as Hénán then designated only that prefecture.
2. A Jiājìng-era Hénán tōngzhì of the late Míng (1556?), described by the Sìkù editors as adequate only “in rough outline”.
3. The Shùnzhì 18 (1661) revision under the Hénán governor Jiǎ Hànfù 賈漢復 (the early-Qīng prototype, of which Huáng Zhījùn reports it was promulgated as a model in the Kāngxī era).

The Yōngzhèng project was launched in Yōngzhèng 9 (1731) under Tián Wénjìng 田文鏡 (1662–1732), then Hédōng (HénánShāndōng) Governor-General — the same ruthless reformer whose name dominates the Yōngzhèng emperor’s Vermilion Edicts on Hénán affairs. He engaged two principal biānzuǎn:

• Sūn Hào 孫灝 (1700–1766), Qiántáng 錢塘 native, jìnshì of Yōngzhèng 1 (1723), Hanlin biānxiū; subsequently Hénán education commissioner. His role here is the substantive heavy lifting.
• Gù Dònggāo 顧棟高 (1679–1759), Wúxī 無錫 native, jìnshì of Kāngxī 60 (1721); the future towering Chūnqiū scholar (cf. his Chūnqiū dàshì biǎo 春秋大事表 — KR1d0036). For Gù, the Hénán tōngzhì is an early Yōngzhèng-era apprenticeship in historical-geographic compilation that anticipates the topographical sophistication of his later Chūnqiū studies.

Tián Wénjìng died in office on Yōngzhèng 10/11/22 (1732/12/19). His successor Wáng Shìjùn 王士俊 (1694–1756, jìnshì of Kāngxī 60), Pīngyuèzhōu 平越州 native (Guìzhōu), took over the project and presented it to the throne in Yōngzhèng 13 (1735). The Sìkù tíyào’s naming convention places Wáng Shìjùn alone on the title-line; the catalog meta correctly preserves all four hands.

The 80-juan / 30-some-category structure follows the Yōngzhèng standard pattern. The work is unusual in the candour of its closing notes: the tíyào itself acknowledges the failure to incorporate the late-Yōngzhèng administrative reorganisations (Chénzhōu and Xǔzhōu raised to fǔ; Zhèngzhōu reassigned; Lúshì reassigned; Náncháo restored as a county). The Yìwén section runs through eight sub-categories (考, 跋, 述, 傳, 序, 檄, 移文, 議, 記, 銘, 誄, 祭文), closing with a Biànyí 辨疑 (“Doubts Resolved”) plus a shíyí 拾遺 supplement at juan 80 — an unusually substantial historiographical-critical apparatus for an eighteenth-century provincial gazetteer.

The work was substantially superseded by Tián Wénjìng’s posthumous reputation reversal in the late Qiánlóng era and by the eventual Guāngxù Hénán tōngzhì (1882) of 80 juan, but the Yōngzhèng version remains the principal Qīng-era documentary baseline for Hénán’s eighteenth-century administrative geography.

Translations and research

No English translation. The work is heavily exploited in Western scholarship on Tián Wénjìng’s administration of Hénán, on Yellow River hydraulics, and on the institutional history of Hé-dōng-Hénán: Pierre-Étienne Will, Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford, 1990); Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate’s Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Ch’ing China (California, 1984), centrally on Tián Wénjìng’s huòhào guī gōng 火耗歸公 reform; R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Cornell, 1997); Pierre-Étienne Will and R. Bin Wong, Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850 (Michigan, 1991). For Gù Dònggāo’s involvement, see Bīn Wong’s brief notice in the Cambridge History of China, vol. 9; for Sūn Hào’s later career as Hénán education commissioner, see Qīng shǐ liè-zhuàn j. 70.

Other points of interest

The collaboration of Tián Wénjìng with the young Gù Dònggāo — best known for his later monumental Chūnqiū dàshì biǎo — is one of the more interesting hidden links in Yōngzhèng intellectual history: it brought a future towering classical scholar through the schoolroom of a famously bureaucratic provincial-gazetteer project. Gù’s training here in the historical geography of the Yellow River basin clearly shaped the topographical sections of the Chūnqiū dàshì biǎo a generation later.

Links

• Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào
• Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11062919 (河南通志)
• Will, Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford, 1990).