Guǎngxī tōngzhì 廣西通志
Comprehensive Gazetteer of Guǎngxī supervised by 金鉷 (Jīn Hóng, 1678–1740) — jiānxiū 監修 compiled by 錢元昌 (Qián Yuánchāng, b. 1676) — biānzuǎn 編纂
About the work
The Yōngzhèng-era Guǎngxī tōngzhì in 128 juan, completed Yōngzhèng 11 (1733), supervised by Jīn Hóng 金鉷 (Governor of Guǎngxī, Right Vice Censor-in-Chief). The work is the most extensive of the Yōngzhèng provincial-gazetteer cohort by juan count — its scale reflecting the unprecedented Qīng administrative consolidation of the southwestern frontier through the gǎitǔ guīliú 改土歸流 (replacement of native chieftainships with regular bureaucratic prefectures) policy then in full execution under Yōngzhèng. The Sìkù tíyào singles out the work for its detailed documentation of the transformation of formerly jīmí 羈縻 (“loose-rein”) prefectures into directly administered fǔzhōu, listing Sīchéng 泗城, Zhènān 鎮安, Dōnglán 東蘭, Guīshùn 歸順, and Níngmíng 寧明 as the principal newly converted units.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Guǎngxī tōngzhì in 128 juan is supervised by Jīn Hóng 金鉷, Governor of Guǎngxī and Right Vice Censor-in-Chief, and others. From the names Guìlín 桂林 and Xiàngjùn 象郡 — recorded in the Shǐjì — the cartography of the southern wilds gradually achieved coherent compilation. Of works extant today: the Táng Mò Xiūfú 莫休符’s Guìlín fēngtǔ jì 桂林風土記; Duàn Gōnglù 段公路’s Běihù lù 北戶錄; the Sòng Fàn Chéngdà 范成大’s Guìhǎi yúhéng zhì 桂海虞衡志; the Míng Wèi Jùn 魏濬’s Qiáonán suǒjì 嶠南瑣記; Zhāng Fèngmíng [recte Zhāng Míngfèng] 張鳳鳴’s Guìgù and Guìshèng — all are stately in narrative and reliable in record of antiquarian matters.
Yet for the prefectural and county successions: in earlier dynasties they were reduced and added without consistency, while under our dynasty the imperial dominion has expanded and the institutional fabric has been articulated in detail. As for prefectures and departments such as Sīchéng 泗城, Zhènān 鎮安, Dōnglán 東蘭, Guīshùn 歸順, and Níngmíng 寧明 — all have undergone gǎitǔ guīliú (the conversion from native-chieftaincy to regular bureaucratic administration). Whatever was formerly called jīmízhōu 羈縻州 (“loose-rein department”) is, without exception, now under royal officials and entered into the household registers — wholly unlike the situation of earlier dynasties when these were half-dependencies of the MánLiáo. One cannot rely on the older texts to discuss the new dispensation.
This book was completed in Yōngzhèng 11 (1733), also at that time a compilation in response to imperial decree. Although for its inherited matter and traditions it relies extensively on the documentary remains of the various authors above, in matters of our August Age’s institutional reforms it is set out analytically and comprehensively, and clear as if pointing in the palm — making it especially suited as a tool of investigation. It is in no way comparable to a Cānluán lù 驂鸞錄 and the like, which only undertake to “pattern the mountains and rivers.”
Abstract
The 1733 Guǎngxī tōngzhì is the largest of the Yōngzhèng-cohort provincial gazetteers (128 juan), supervised by the Hànjūn Bordered-Yellow Banner official Jīn Hóng (CBDB 63602; 1678–1740, zì Yángfēng 養峰), Governor of Guǎngxī 1727–1739. Its principal biānzuǎn was Qián Yuánchāng 錢元昌 (CBDB 86463; b. 1676), a Chángshú native and Kāngxī 60 (1721) jìnshì. The work’s distinctive scholarly contribution is its exhaustive documentation of the early-Yōngzhèng gǎitǔ guīliú reforms — the systematic replacement of hereditary native chieftaincy by regular bureaucratic government — in the southwestern province. Sìkù tíyào explicitly contrasts the work with antiquarian cānluán travel-writing (the model alluded to is Fàn Chéngdà’s Cānluán lù 驂鸞錄), praising its administrative-historical orientation. The text is preserved in the Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vols. 565.1–568.1).
The work was substantially superseded by the Jiāqìng-era Guǎngxī tōngzhì jíyào 廣西通志輯要 (1801, ed. Xiè Qǐkūn 謝啟昆) in 280 juan, which retained the institutional-history orientation but extensively revised the geographical and ethnographic sections.
Translations and research
No comprehensive English translation. Standard works using the gazetteer for early-Qīng southwestern frontier and gǎi-tǔ guī-liú studies: John E. Herman, Amid the Clouds and Mist: China’s Colonization of Guizhou, 1200–1700 (Harvard, 2007); Leo K. Shin, The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands (Cambridge, 2006); Jodi L. Weinstein, Empire and Identity in Guizhou: Local Resistance to Qing Expansion (Washington, 2014); C. Patterson Giersch, Asian Borderlands (Harvard, 2006), all of which use this gazetteer comparatively for the Sino-Zhuang / Sino-Yáo borderlands. For Zhuang ethnology see David Holm, Mapping the Old Zhuang Character Script (Brill, 2013).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào contains a textual error: the Míng-era author cited as 張鳳鳴 should be 張鳴鳳 (Zhāng Míngfèng), the actual author of Guìgù 桂故 and Guìshèng 桂勝 (KR2k0087). This typographical inversion is preserved unchanged in the Sìkù tíyào and has been retained in the translation above as a documentary feature; the intended reference is to 張鳴鳳.
Links
- Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11062942 (廣西通志)