Jìngzhǐ jí 敬止集
Reverently-Stopped Collection (a documentary anthology on TàiXìng waterworks) by 陳應芳 (Chén Yìngfāng, 1545–after 1620) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 4-juan late-Míng documentary anthology on the Xiàhé 下河 watershed of northern Jiāngsū — the Yángzhōu, Tàizhōu, Xìnghuà, Gāoyóu, Bǎoyìng, and Yánchéng zone where the HuáiYángYùnhé canal cuts across the Lake-Tài-Hú overflow basin. Composed by Chén Yìngfāng, a native of Tàizhōu Garrison (Tàizhōu wèi), to assemble the contemporary memorials, official correspondence, and private letters on the local hydraulic system. Title from the Shījīng allusion to jìng zhǐ 敬止 (“reverently stop”), expressing his attachment to the native place. Six maps depict the Tàizhōu shànghé, Tàizhōu xiàhé, GāoXìng xiàhé, Xìnghuà xiàhé, Bǎoyìng xiàhé, and Yánchéng xiàhé; thirteen lùn essays follow, with material on canal-transport and tax-revenue.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: this is the work of Chén Yìngfāng 陳應芳 of the Míng. Yìngfāng, zì Yuánzhèn 元振, of Tàizhōu Garrison; jìnshì of Wànlì yǐwèi (1595), Provincial Administration Vice-Commissioner of Fújiàn. Huáinán is anciently called the watery state, and Tàizhōu Xìnghuà are particularly so. Yìngfāng was a native of Tàizhōu, and so investigated the source-and-course of the watercourses, and the benefits and harms to the river — exhaustively grasping the topography. He gathered the memorials, official correspondence, and private letters of the day on the river-channels into one book, named Jìngzhǐ — for he venerated his native place.
He further drew them as maps: the Tàizhōu shànghé (Upper Tàizhōu River), Tàizhōu xiàhé (Lower Tàizhōu River), GāoXìng xiàhé (Gāoyóu / Xìnghuà Lower River), Xìnghuà xiàhé, Bǎoyìng xiàhé, Yánchéng xiàhé. There are thirteen appended essays, also touching on canal-transport and field-tax. Although today the conventions are different and the topography has shifted in turn, when one collates with the watercourses, what he portrayed is no longer in correspondence. Yet the book’s discussion is in detail and clarity. As a man of that place, speaking of the benefits and harms of that place, it is far better than improvised inspection on the spot or improvisation in response to the matter. Tracing it for similarity and difference, in order to seek out the causes of changes — for dredging and dyking, the contribution is also not none.
Abstract
The Jìngzhǐ jí is the principal late-Míng monograph on the Xiàhé watershed of northern Jiāngsū — the most hydraulically complex region of the MíngQīng empire, where the HuáiYángYùnhé canal crosses the TàiHú overflow basin and the Huái discharge zone. Its author Chén Yìngfāng (CBDB id 206180; b. 1545, jìnshì of Wànlì 23 / 1595) was a Tàizhōu Garrison native who rose to Bùzhèngsī cānzhèng (Provincial Administration Vice-Commissioner) of Fújiàn; the present Jìngzhǐ jí was composed in retirement at his native place, drawing on his direct local knowledge.
The work’s six-map / thirteen-essay structure presents the Xiàhé sub-watersheds in coherent topographical order and survives as one of the principal documentary sources for late-Míng northern-Jiāngsū hydraulic policy. The Sìkù tíyào explicitly notes that by the Qiánlóng era, the topography had shifted enough that Chén’s maps were no longer fully accurate — but praises the work as the testimony of a local witness and a major source for understanding the yángé (history of changes) of the region.
CBDB also has homonymous entries 321214, 370931, 475187 for which no confident dates are recorded; the principal entry 206180 (b. 1545) is the Wàn-lì-era jìnshì and matches the catalog meta. The text is preserved in the Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 577.1).
Translations and research
No English translation. Cited in: Pierre-Étienne Will, Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford, 1990); Pierre-Étienne Will and R. Bin Wong, Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850 (Michigan, 1991); Robert Marks, Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China (Cambridge, 1998). Standard reference: Yáo Hàn-yuán, Zhōngguó shuǐlì shǐ (1987).
Other points of interest
The Jìngzhǐ jí is one of the few late-Míng hydraulic monographs to assemble unofficial private correspondence (sīzhá 私札) alongside official memorials, providing a rare documentary register of the social-network dimension of Míng hydraulic policy.