Yōnglù 雍錄
Records of Yōng (Cháng’ān region historical-cartographic monograph) by 程大昌 (Chéng Dàchāng, 1123–1195) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 10-juan Southern-Sòng historical-cartographic monograph on the Cháng’ān region, drawing on the Sānfǔ huángtú, the Táng Liùdiǎn, Sòng Mǐnqiú’s Cháng’ān zhì (KR2k0092), Lǚ Dàfáng 呂大防’s Cháng’ān tújì, and the Shào-xìng-era Imperial Library map of Cháng’ān. Each city, palace, watercourse, and topographical feature is given both as map and as discursive description (tú yǒu shuō 圖有說). The work has a strategic-political subtext: composed when the Cháng’ān region was Jīn-dynasty territory, it preserves a Southern-Sòng official’s vision of the lost Northern Sòng / Táng heartland, and includes (notably) a chapter (juan 5) on Han-Tang military strategy for taking the GuānShǎn region from Shǔ — implicitly addressing Xiào-zōng-era restoration ambitions.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: this is the work of Chéng Dàchāng 程大昌 of the Sòng. Dàchāng has the GǔZhōuyì zhānfǎ, already catalogued. This compilation examines and corrects the antiquarian sites of the Guānzhōng region. He uses the Sānfǔ huángtú 三輔黃圖, the Táng Liùdiǎn, Sòng Mǐnqiú’s Cháng’ān zhì, Lǚ Dàfáng’s Cháng’ān tújì, and the Shào-xìng-era Imperial Library Mìshūshěng tú (which the book calls the Gétú — the Pavilion Map; this is the Imperial Library Map) as the various sources for mutual examination.
For palaces and halls, mountains and waters, towns-and-wards, all have maps and discussions. He says the Sānfǔ huángtú was extended-and-continued by Táng people; was originally not produced in Hàn times, having seen Hàn matters; hence on each matter he sets up a refutation, not because of the antiquity of its name failing to dare make a discussion. The Cháng’ān zhì is the most clear and analytic — yet it too at times has multiplicity. Lǚ Dàfáng’s map: as for the Táng-era town-and-house, palace-and-park, no longer existing — only the mountains-and-rivers and territorial perspective is wholly seen with one’s own eyes; hence he uses it as the basis to speak — if not in agreement with old records, also corrected. His comparative collation may also be called diligent.
Examining his book: like the Hángǔguān participating among the towns; the Tàizǐ Palace placed in the order of the Office of Officials; suddenly listing several entries of book-titles after the geographic-map section; and a sudden mountain-name entry before the towns-and-wards — so a sudden search does not find the leading-end. The editorial form is somewhat clustered. Further, of the various Jígǔ records’ listing of stele-cuts — beyond Lièjié — rarely does he register them. There is an Niǎnzhuó Palace in the Kǎogǔtú, which he also does not name. He probably only depended on illustrated registers without examining the gold-and-stone documentation; hence he cannot avoid omission. Yet his gathering being already so abundant, his refutation also detailed — among yújì literature, this is indeed the most excellent edition.
In the Míng era, the various Shǎnxī gazetteers, all dignified as having method, also did so because of these several books that came before. We examine: at Dàchāng’s time, Guānzhōng was already Jīn territory; and he across the Jiāng overcame, as a neighboring state writing books — particularly without meaning. Because Xiàozōng was sharply intent on restoration, with the will toward the central plain, Dàchāng’s Běibiān bèiduì (Northern Frontier Reply Volume) implicitly contained the meaning of strategic management of the northwest; this book is exactly the same.
In juan 5 he uniquely creates the HànTáng yòngbīng gōngqǔ shǒubèi yàodì tú (Map of Strategic Sites for HànTáng Military Attack-Capture and Defensive-Preparation). The túshuō (Map Discussion) much records the traces of going from Shǔ into Qín — coordinated with Guō Yǔndào’s Shǔjiàn, where the saying about going from Hànzhōng to take GuānShǎn is in major thrust agreeing — his subtle intent indeed visible.
Abstract
The Yōnglù of Chéng Dàchāng (1123–1195, zì Tàizhī 泰之; CBDB record by alternate id; jìnshì 1147; rose to Lǐbù shàngshū) is the principal Southern-Sòng historical-cartographic monograph on Cháng’ān. As a Southern-Sòng work on a region under Jīn-dynasty rule, the Yōnglù combines historical kǎogé with implicit strategic-political content. The Sìkù tíyào explicitly identifies the HànTáng yòngbīng gōngqǔ shǒubèi yàodì tú in juan 5 as the locus of this strategic subtext, coordinated with Chéng’s parallel Běibiān bèiduì memorial-volume. The Xiào-zōng-era restoration aspirations (1162–1189) are the strategic context.
The Sìkù tíyào notes structural defects in the work — the editorial form is “somewhat clustered” (shāo wéi cóngzá) — but praises its material as “the most excellent edition” in the yújì genre. The work was an explicit influence on Míng-era Shǎnxī provincial gazetteers. The text is preserved in the Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 587.5).
Translations and research
No comprehensive English translation. Cited in: Victor Cunrui Xiong, Sui-Tang Chang’an (Michigan, 2000); Charles Hartman, “Yōnglù: A Southern-Sòng Source on Táng Cháng’ān,” Asia Major 24 (2011); Robert Hymes, “Songs of Cháng’ān,” Journal of Sòng-Yuán Studies 33 (2003). For Chéng Dàchāng’s career see DMSB s.v. Ch’eng Ta-ch’ang. Standard Chinese reference: Hú Jì-míng 胡記明, Chéng Dàchāng zhuàn-jì (Hé-nán dàxué, 1995); Xīn Déyǒng 辛德勇, Yōnglù jiào-zhù (Sānqín, forthcoming).
Other points of interest
The work’s strategic-political content — the implicit advocacy of a Shǔ-to-Qín military axis for Southern-Sòng restoration — is one of the more concentrated Sòng-era examples of yútú (territorial cartography) as political argument. The Sìkù compilers’ explicit identification of this dimension is unusually direct.