Běihé jì 北河紀
Records of the Northern Canal (with Jìyú 紀餘 in 4 juan attached) by 謝肇淛 (Xiè Zhàozhè, 1567–1624) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
An 8-juan monograph (with appended 4-juan Jìyú) on the northern segment of the Grand Canal — Běihé 北河, conventionally the Línqīng 臨清 to Tōngzhōu 通州 length — composed by Xiè Zhàozhè during his tenure as Gōngbù lángzhōng with oversight of the Zhāngqiū 張秋 sluice complex. The work is divided into eight jì (chronicles): Héchéng 河程, Héyuán 河源, Hégōng 河工, Héfáng 河防, Héchén 河臣, Hézhèng 河政, Héyì 河議, Hélíng 河靈, with maps prefacing the work. The Jìyú in 4 juan gathers ancillary materials on mountains, sites, and verse on the canal. The Míngshí Yìwénzhì records the work in 8 juan; the present is the same. The early-Qīng Shùn-zhì-era Hézhǔshì Yán Tíngmó 閻廷謨 produced a 4-juan Běihé xùjì 北河續紀 supplementing it.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: this is the work of Xiè Zhàozhè 謝肇淛 of the Míng. Zhàozhè has the Shǐguī, already catalogued. This book was composed when he, as Gōngbù lángzhōng with oversight of the river, was at Zhāngqiū. The Míngshǐ Yìwénzhì catalogues it; the juan-count agrees.
It first lists the maps of the river-channels, then divides into eight jì — Héchéng (River Itinerary), Héyuán (River Source), Hégōng (River Works), Héfáng (River Defense), Héchén (River Officials), Hézhèng (River Administration), Héyì (River Discussion), Hélíng (River Numinous Phenomena). Setting out in detail the source-and-course of the Běihé (Northern Canal), and the merits and demerits of management in successive dynasties — its gathering and selection are very full; its analytic articulation also very clear and detailed.
As to mountains, rivers, antiquarian sites, and the title-poems of past and present, these are made into a separate four juan appended at the end, named Jìyú (Surplus Records). For a book on a river-channel, the river is the principal subject, and so it differs in editorial form from the prefectural-and-county geographic compilations.
In the Shùnzhì era of our dynasty, the Hézhǔshì Yán Tíngmó 閻廷謨 added new institutions, composing the Běihé xùjì in 4 juan. Although the topography has shifted and there are minor differences, in the main direction it still takes this book as its source-text. The original organizing categories all have systematic order, and so subsequent revisers cannot replace it.
Zhàozhè’s writings are very many; in the Míngshǐ’s Wényuàn zhuàn, only this book is recorded — saying that it sets out in full the river’s source-and-course, and the merits and demerits of management in successive dynasties — there must have been a reason for so taking it.
Abstract
The Běihé jì is the principal late-Míng monograph on the Northern Grand Canal. Its author Xiè Zhàozhè (1567–1624, jìnshì 1592, of Chánglè in Fújiàn — CBDB record by alternate id, see person note), one of the major bibliophile-encyclopedists of the late Míng, also produced the geographical work Wǔzázǔ 五雜組 and the Yúnnán gazetteer Diānlüè 滇略. The work was composed during his Gōngbù lángzhōng tenure with oversight of the Zhāngqiū 張秋 sluice — the principal regulatory point on the upper Northern Canal where the Wènshuǐ 汶水 enters from the east. The eight-fold organization (Héchéng, Héyuán, Hégōng, Héfáng, Héchén, Hézhèng, Héyì, Hélíng) is an editorial innovation that established the formal pattern for subsequent canal monographs; Yán Tíngmó’s Běihé xùjì (Shùnzhì era) follows the same plan.
The text is preserved in the Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 576.8) and in numerous MíngQīng commercial impressions. The Míngshǐ Wényuàn zhuàn notice of Xiè Zhàozhè singles out this work above his much larger literary corpus — an indication of its early-Qīng reception.
Translations and research
No English translation. Cited in: Hoshi Ayao 星斌夫, Min-Shin daiundō no kenkyū 明清大運河の研究 (Tokyo, 1971), the standard Japanese monograph; James M. Hargett, “The Tradition of Travel Diaries (Yóujì) Literature in Imperial China,” AOH 1985 (treating Xiè Zhàozhè’s travel-writings); Sarah M. Allen, Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China (Harvard, 2014). Standard reference: Yáo Hàn-yuán, Zhōngguó shuǐlì shǐ (1987).
Other points of interest
The eight-fold jì structure of the work — and especially the inclusion of Hélíng (River Numinous Phenomena) as a co-equal category — is a distinctive late-Míng editorial feature, treating the riparian deity-cult of the Wènshuǐ and other tributaries as integral to canal administration.