Sìmíng Tāshān shuǐlì bèilǎn 四明它山水利備覽
Comprehensive Survey of the Hydraulic Works of Mount Tā at Sì-míng by 魏峴 (Wèi Xiàn, fl. 1208–1242) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 2-juan Southern Sòng monograph on the Tāshān yàn 它山堰 weir system at Sìmíng (Yínxiàn / modern Níngbō) — one of the most important pre-modern Chinese irrigation works, and the earliest surviving comprehensive monograph on a Chinese weir-and-canal system. The original Tāshān weir was constructed in Táng Tàihé 7 (833) by the magistrate Wáng Yuánwěi 王元暐 to block the salt-water tidal intrusion of the river and direct fresh-water flow into the city, irrigating seven sub-counties west of Yín. By the Jiādìng era of the Sòng (1208–1224), the weir had decayed; Wèi Xiàn petitioned the prefecture and personally directed the rebuilding. The book records this work. The upper juan gathers miscellaneous notes on the source, the regulations, and the chronicle of construction; the lower juan gathers stele inscriptions and related verse.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: this is the work of Wèi Xiàn 魏峴 of the Sòng. Xiàn, of Yín County, served as Cháofèngláng and Maritime Trade Superintendent of Fújiàn Circuit. Yín had since antiquity a single watercourse called the Tāshān; in the beginning the great river ran through to the sea, and salt tides would flow back, to the detriment of cultivation. In the seventh year of Tàihé in the Táng (833), the County Magistrate Wáng Yuánwěi (元暐) first constructed the weir to block the river-tide; thereafter the stream watered the city, and the seven sub-counties west of Yín all benefited from it. After many years it had decayed; in the Jiādìng era of the Sòng (1208–1224), Xiàn spoke to the prefecture and requested its rebuilding, then directed the labor of construction — and on this account he composed the present book to record it. The upper juan miscellaneously chronicles source, regulations, and the chronicle of construction; the lower juan is entirely steles and verse-and-praise.
We note: the Xīn Tángshū dìlǐzhì records that south of Mào County of Míngzhōu (Yín County in the Táng was Mào County), at 2 lǐ, there is the Xiǎojiānghú 小江湖, irrigating 800 qǐng — established in the Kāiyuán era by Magistrate Wáng Yuánwěi 元緯; that 25 lǐ east there is the West Lake, irrigating 500 qǐng, in Tiānbǎo 2 (743) opened up by Magistrate Lù Nánjīn 陸南金. The present compilation states that the Tāshān water enters by the South Gate, and accumulates as the Sun and Moon Lakes — the Sun Lake being the Xiǎojiānghú, the Moon Lake being West Lake — saying both were dredged by Wáng Yuánwěi 元緯; without mentioning the Tiānbǎo Lù Nánjīn — there seems to be an omission. As to the present compilation reading 元暐 (with the right element wěi) for 元緯, and reading the Kāiyuán era as Tàihé 7 — the various stele-records here preserved, and the verse of the Táng monk Yuánliàng 元亮, provide clear corroboration, sufficient to correct the errors of the Tángzhì; one cannot regard differences from the standard history as a problem.
This work, in the realm of geographic gazetteers, is fairly close to antiquity. The Sòng-era Sìmíng jùnzhì once cited from it; yet transmissions are very rare, and it nearly perished without trace. In the Chóngzhēn xīnsì year (1641) of the Míng, the Yín native Chén Cháofù 陳朝輔 first obtained the old volume and printed it. The blocks too were dispersed. At the head are Xiàn’s preface and Cháofù’s preface, and at the end is appended the preface of the Sìmíng zhì. The present is extracted from the Chén edition.
Abstract
The Sìmíng Tāshān shuǐlì bèilǎn is the earliest substantially preserved monograph on a single Chinese weir-and-canal hydraulic system; it serves as a documentary baseline for the eight-hundred-year (833–present) operation of the Tāshān weir at Yín. The work’s Sìkù tíyào is unusually scholarly: the compilers note Wèi Xiàn’s correction of the Xīn Tángshū dìlǐzhì’s graphic error (元緯 for 元暐) and the dating discrepancy (Kāiyuán for Tàihé 7 / 833), explicitly endorsing Wèi’s data on the basis of his preserved stele evidence. The Sìkù compilers also note one omission in Wèi’s account: the role of the Tiānbǎo era magistrate Lù Nánjīn 陸南金 in the development of the West Lake. The text’s transmission was interrupted; it was rescued by the late-Míng Chóngzhēn xīnsì (1641) reprint of Chén Cháofù 陳朝輔, then re-transmitted into the Sìkù.
CBDB has Wèi Xiàn at id 16102 with no concrete dates; the Sìkù tíyào provides only that he served as Cháofèngláng (a high jiéluèshǐ civil rank) and Maritime Trade Superintendent of Fújiàn Circuit. He flourished from the period of the Tāshān reconstruction in the Jiādìng era (1208–1224) into the Chúnyòu era (1241–1252).
Translations and research
No English translation. Cited in: Mark Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants (Yale, 2004); Anne Osborne, “Highlands and Lowlands: Economic and Ecological Interactions in the Lower Yangzi Region under the Qing,” in Sediments of Time: Environment and Society in Chinese History (Cambridge, 1998); James K. Chin, “Coastal Hydrology in Sòng-Yuán Zhèjiāng,” Asia Major 23 (2010). The Tā-shān weir is the subject of the UNESCO World Heritage Irrigation Structures designation (2015), with detailed engineering studies in Chinese.
Other points of interest
The Tāshān weir is one of the four major still-functioning ancient Chinese irrigation works (alongside Dūjiāngyàn 都江堰, Língqú 靈渠, and Sháopō 芍陂); the Sìmíng Tāshān shuǐlì bèilǎn is the earliest surviving monograph on any of the four.