Zhìhé túlüè 治河圖略
Illustrated Outline of Yellow River Management by 王喜 (Wáng Xǐ, fl. mid-14th c.) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 1-juan late-Yuán technical-cum-historical work on Yellow River management. The work opens with six maps, each with explanatory text, and appends two essays — Zhìhé fānglüè 治河方略 (“Strategies for Yellow River Management”) and Lìdài juéhé zǒnglùn 歷代決河總論 (“General Discussion of Yellow River Breaches in Successive Dynasties”). The form of address (“Chén jǐn xù 臣謹敍, chén jǐn lùn 臣謹論”) suggests it was a presented memorial. Composed shortly after the Zhì-zhèng-era (1341–1370) Yellow River breach at the Báimáo dyke, when the Yuán court sought hydraulic-engineering advice; eventually the strategy of Jiǎ Lǔ 賈魯 (combining dredging and embankment) was adopted, in agreement with the position taken in the present work.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: this is the work of Wáng Xǐ 王喜 of the Yuán. Xǐ’s rank and place are not preserved. The book first lists six maps; at the end of each map is appended an explanation, and after these is appended Zhìhé fānglüè and the two essays of Lìdài juéhé zǒnglùn. The text reads “Chén jǐn xù 臣謹敍” and “chén jǐn lùn 臣謹論,” etc. — it appears to be a presented memorial.
We examine: the Yuánshí Shùndì běnjì (Annals of Emperor Shun) and Héqú zhì (Treatise on Waterways and Canals) record that in the Zhìzhèng era, when the Yellow River breached the Báimáo Embankment and the Jīndī, great ministers were sent to seek out strategies for management. This book may have been composed at that time. Its main thrust takes Lǐ Xún’s “follow what is natural” doctrine: the principle is dredging the new and recovering the old. Subsequently the strategy of Jiǎ Lǔ 賈魯 was applied — dredging and damming undertaken simultaneously, drawing the river east, restoring the old channel — exactly in accord with the position of this compilation. So at the time the words herein had already been adopted; the histories’ silence on the presentation of his book is merely a gap in the record.
In the maps drawn within of the source of the river, there are many corrupt errors. The Kūnlún Star-lodging Lake lies remote, beyond the desolate frontier; only since our State has fixed the western frontier, with the Pamir and Khotan all within the imperial registers, does the matter of the river’s “twin sources” possess a clear basis of evidence. What the Yuán wrote relied on Pān Ángxiāo’s report; what Pān Ángxiāo recorded relied on the verbal report of Dūshí 篤什 (formerly Dūshí 都實; now corrected). The chain was: hand-to-hand transmission, mostly hearsay. The compilers of the Yuánshí moreover quoted his text in full into the Héqú zhì, calling it “what was never heard since antiquity.” Given Wáng Xǐ’s continuation of the corruption, no wonder. We may take what is detailed in his strategic plan, and set aside what is loose in his evidentiary investigation.
Abstract
The Zhìhé túlüè is one of the principal documents of late-Yuán hydraulic-engineering thought. Its dating is reasonably secure: the Zhìzhèng era (1341–1370) Yellow River breach at the Báimáo dyke — the immediate occasion for the Yuán court’s solicitation of hydraulic-engineering advice — is conventionally dated to Zhìzhèng 4 (1344); the strategy ultimately adopted, that of Jiǎ Lǔ 賈魯 (1297–1353), was implemented in 1351. Wáng Xǐ’s memorial advocates the position of “follow nature”: dredging the new channel while restoring the old. The work’s six maps include a representation of the Yellow River source that follows the Pān Ángxiāo / Dūshí line of error — relying on the Yuán-era expedition of Dūshí (Toqto’a-Buqa, Du Shi in older transliteration) to the Star-lodging Lake (Odon Tala) but stopping short of the actual sources beyond — for which the Sìkù compilers explicitly criticize the work, contrasting it with the Qiánlóng-era Héyuán jìlüè (KR2k0072).
CBDB has multiple unconnected entries for the name 王喜; no confident match for the Yuán hydraulic engineer. The Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū version (vol. 576.4) is the principal preserved text.
Translations and research
No English translation. Cited in: Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4.3 (Cambridge, 1971); Mark Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants (Yale, 2004), §10. Standard Chinese reference: Yáo Hàn-yuán 姚漢源, Zhōngguó shuǐlì shǐ (Shuǐlì diànlì, 1987). For the Yuán Yellow River breach and Jiǎ Lǔ’s response see Hsiao Ch’i-ch’ing, “Yuan Government and Society,” in The Cambridge History of China vol. 6 (1994), §6.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the few Yuán-era hydraulic-engineering memorials preserved in a complete form; the form of address (chén jǐn xù…) preserves the original presentation-memorial register. Wáng Xǐ’s six maps survive only via the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn / Sìkù recension and have not been independently transmitted; their accuracy on the Yellow River source is poor (he relies on the Yuán-era Pān Ángxiāo / Dūshí line of evidence) but their representation of the lower-course channel is broadly accurate.