Jiāngchéng míngjì 江城名蹟
Famous Sites of the River City (Nánchāng) by 陳弘緒 (Chén Hóngxù, 1597–1665) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 4-juan late-Míng / early-Qīng documentary monograph on the famous sites of Nánchāng, the provincial seat of Jiāngxī comprising Nánchāng County and Xīnjiàn County. Composed by Chén Hóngxù (1597–1665) — a Míng jǔrén-recommended-official who served as Jìnzhōu Prefect under Chóngzhēn but resisted the Yánjūn of the eunuch-Premier Liú Yǔliàng’s deployment, was demoted, and after the MíngQīng transition retired into seclusion at his native Nánchāng. The work is divided into upper and lower juan: Kǎogǔ (Antiquarian Examination) and Zhèngjīn (Verifying Present), both organized by sub-region. Chén explicitly does not partition by dynasty but by xīngfèi cúnwáng (rise-fall, exist-lose) — grounding the monograph in personal observation rather than catalog-listing.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: this is the work of Chén Hóngxù 陳宏緒 (also written 陳弘緒) of our dynasty. Hóngxù, zì Shìyè 士業, of Xīnjiàn 新建. At the end of the Míng he was recommended and appointed Magistrate of Jìnzhōu. At that time Liú Yǔliàng 劉宇亮 as a Cabinet Minister was directing the army; he wished to move troops into Jìnzhōu. Hóngxù refused to admit them. He was thereupon demoted to Húzhōufǔ jīnglì (Húzhōu Prefectural Manager). After the change of dynasty he ended at home.
This book — because Nánchāng is the provincial city, the territory of Nánchāng and Xīnjiàn two counties — examines the famous-traces, with the city as the inside-and-outside of the limit. Whatever is far from the city is not extended much in detail at the various lóuguān (towers and abbeys), cíyǔ (shrines and abodes), fànshà (Buddhist monasteries), yuántíng (gardens and pavilions). The upper juan is Kǎogǔ (Examination of Antiquity); the lower is Zhèngjīn (Verification of the Present). His own preface says: “Antiquity and present are not partitioned by reign-period; only by rise-and-fall and existence-and-loss.” Indeed every matter has been observed and traversed personally, not merely a desk-and-file registration.
Hóngxù’s literature is rich-and-elegant; in the late Míng he was reckoned able to fùgǔ (revive antiquity). Hence in this composition the narration has rather systematic order, the evidence is also precise. Only that he delights in recording miscellaneous matters — many close to xiǎoshuō (small-talk); and many wandering and digressive. Like under the Tiānníngsì entry, recording the temple-monks’ lewd-behavior and the like — rather contrary to dàyǎ (great elegance), and not the form of a dìzhì (gazetteer). This is also the failure of strict editorial form, an unavoidable flaw in the white jade.
Abstract
The Jiāngchéng míngjì is the principal pre-Qiánlóng-era documentary monograph on Nánchāng. Its author Chén Hóngxù (1597–1665, zì Shìyè 士業; CBDB id 81681 confirms 1597–1665) was a major late-Míng / early-Qīng literatus and Míng-loyalist. Recommended-and-appointed Magistrate of Jìnzhōu (Héběi) under Chóngzhēn, he refused the Cabinet Minister Liú Yǔliàng’s troop-deployment request and was demoted to Húzhōufǔ jīnglì — after which he retired in protest to his native Nánchāng. He survived the 1644 transition and the post-conquest era as a private literatus.
The work’s organizational principle — “antiquity and present are not partitioned by reign-period; only by rise-and-fall and existence-and-loss” — is a striking statement of the xīngfèi (rise-and-fall) historiographical orientation characteristic of the late-Míng / early-Qīng documentary-monograph tradition. The Sìkù tíyào criticizes Chén’s inclusion of small-talk-style anecdotal material (the Tiānníngsì monk-lewdness entry is singled out) as a violation of the gazetteer form, but acknowledges the work’s overall elegance and evidentiary precision.
The text is preserved in the Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 588.2).
Translations and research
No English translation. Cited in: Lynn Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (Yale, 1984); Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma in Late Imperial Chinese Literature (Harvard, 2014); Frederic Wakeman Jr., The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (UC Press, 1985), §3 on Chén Hóng-xù’s Míng-loyalist circle. For the genre context see Pierre-Étienne Will, Chinese Local Gazetteers (1992).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù compilers’ explicit criticism of the Tiānníngsì monk-lewdness entry as a violation of dìzhì form is a notable instance of Sìkù editorial rebuke of late-Míng xiǎoshuō-influenced documentary writing.