Biànjīng yíjì zhì 汴京遺蹟志
Gazetteer of the Bequeathed Sites of Biànjīng (Northern-Sòng Kāifēng) by 李濂 (Lǐ Lián, 1488–1566) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 24-juan late-Míng documentary monograph on Northern-Sòng Biànjīng (modern Kāifēng) — the second-most-important medieval Chinese capital after Cháng’ān, lost to the Jurchen Jīn in 1127 in the Jìngkāng catastrophe. Lǐ Lián, observing that earlier capitals had each their own gazetteer (Cháng’ān: Sòng Mǐnqiú KR2k0092; Luòyáng: Yáng Xuànzhī KR2k0090) but that Biànjīng had none — and judging Mèng Yuánlǎo’s late-Sòng Dōngjīng mènghuá lù as too anecdotal and not a dìzhì (the Sìkù compilers add a parenthetical correction noting that Mèng’s work was a fēngsú 風俗 monograph not a gazetteer, distinct in genre) — gathered older materials and composed a comprehensive WǔdàiSòngJīn historical-topographical monograph on the city.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: this is the work of Lǐ Lián 李濂 of the Míng. Lián has the Xiángfú xiānxián zhuàn, already catalogued. This book — because successive-age capitals all have their own gazetteer; only Biànjīng has none — and further Sòng Mèng Yuánlǎo’s Dōngjīng mènghuá lù, weed-and-trifle, low-and-coarse, not worth viewing (we examine: Yuánlǎo’s book records customs and trifling matters; with dìzhì form, it differs in genre. This statement is overstated; we respectfully append a correction here) — therefore he gathered older lore and edited it into a volume.
The editorial form is regular and orderly, much having weight-of-essentials. The citations are rigorous-and-accurate, also showing real grounds. Within yújì literature, it can be called a good edition. Although its precision-and-broadness, distinction-and-clarity does not reach Sòng Mǐnqiú’s Cháng’ān zhì and Chéng Dàchāng’s Yōnglù, yet from ZhūLiáng down to Jīnyuán — for several hundred years’ establishment-and-succession reasons, rise-and-fall existence-and-loss traces — all gathered together in compilation, leaving a leading-end. Also as if pointing to the palm.
Sòng Mǐnqiú’s Dōngjīng jì is no longer transmitted; obtaining Lián’s book is sufficient to supplement its lacuna.
Abstract
The Biànjīng yíjì zhì of Lǐ Lián (1488–1566) is the principal Míng-era documentary monograph on Northern-Sòng Biànjīng. Its author, Lǐ Lián (also written Lián 濓; zì Chuānfù 川父, hào Sōngshì 嵩士, of Xiángfú County / Kāifēng — Lǐ Lián is also catalogued in the Sìkù as the author of Xiángfú xiānxián zhuàn and other Kāifēng-related works) was a Hóng-zhì-era jìnshì (1517) who held provincial-administration office before retirement to his native Kāifēng to pursue local-historical scholarship.
The work supersedes Sòng Mǐnqiú’s lost Dōngjīng jì — the standard pre-Yuán Biànjīng gazetteer, lost in the post-Yuán transmission. The Sìkù tíyào explicitly identifies the work as the principal vehicle by which Sòng Mǐnqiú’s lost knowledge of Biànjīng has been transmitted. The Sìkù compilers also append a notable correction to Lǐ Lián’s dismissive characterization of Mèng Yuánlǎo’s Dōngjīng mènghuá lù: Mèng’s work is in a different genre (fēngsú / customs literature) and ought not be judged by dìzhì (gazetteer) standards.
The 24-juan structure covers the period from the Wǔdài HòuLiáng (Zhū Liáng) through the JīnYuán transition — i.e. from 907 to ca. 1234, the period during which Kāifēng was an imperial capital. The text is preserved in the Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 587.8).
CBDB has multiple homonymous entries for 李濂; no single entry confidently corresponds to the Hóng-zhì-era Kāifēng jìnshì. The catalog meta lifedates 1488–1566 are consistent with the Hóngzhì 1517 jìnshì identification.
Translations and research
No comprehensive English translation. Cited and partially translated in: Stephen H. West, “The Interpretation of a Dream: The Sources, Influence and Evaluation of the Mengliang lu,” Toung Pao 71 (1985) — comparative on Northern-Sòng capital monographs; Christian de Pee, The Writing of Weddings in Middle-Period China (SUNY, 2007); Lin Wan-shu 林萬樹, “Imagining Lost Capitals,” in Imagining Past and Place (forthcoming). For Northern-Sòng Kāifēng see E. A. Kracke Jr., “Sung K’ai-feng: Pragmatic Metropolis and Formalistic Capital,” in Crisis and Prosperity in Sung China (Tucson, 1975).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào’s explicit correction of Lǐ Lián’s overly-dismissive characterization of the Dōngjīng mènghuá lù is one of the more notable instances of Sìkù compiler-intervention in the original yújì tradition’s evaluation of source-texts.