Jīnáo tuìshí bǐjì 金鰲退食筆記
Notes Made on Withdrawal-from-Service at Jīnáo (the Three Lakes of Beijing) by 高士奇 (Gāo Shìqí, 1645–1704) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 2-juan early-Qīng monograph on the imperial precincts west of the Forbidden City — the Three Lakes (北海 Běihǎi, 中海 Zhōnghǎi, 南海 Nánhǎi) and the Xīyuán 西苑 imperial garden, including the late-Míng imperial palaces and pavilions still partly extant in the early Qīng. Composed by Gāo Shìqí in Kāngxī jiǎzǐ (1684) during his tenure as Hànlínyuàn shìjiǎng xuéshì (Reading-in-Waiting Scholar of the Hànlín Academy) attending the Inner Court. Gāo had been bestowed residence at the Tàiyèchí xī (West of Tàiyè Pond) in 1677; he composed the work after seven years of riding past the Jīnáo Yùdōng bridge daily. The work is structured “with the west detailed and the east abridged” because Gāo himself resided in the western precinct. Methodological scrupulosity: matters in the Huìdiǎn he does not record; matters not confidently verified he does not record; matters seldom seen by outsiders he does not dare record.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: this is the work of Gāo Shìqí 高士奇 of our dynasty. Shìqí has the Chūnqiū dìmíng kǎolüè, already catalogued. This compilation is what he composed in Kāngxī jiǎzǐ (1684), during his tenure as Shìjiǎng xuéshì attending the Inner Court. The opening has his own preface, saying: “From dīngsì (1677) bestowed residence west of the Tàiyèchí, mornings and evenings I rode forth, passing over the Jīnáo Yùdōng bridge, and viewed the scenery within the imperial gardens. Through seven full cold-and-warm cycles, in moments of withdrawal-from-meals (tuìshí), occasionally inquired into the older institutions, broadly gained from oral tradition. Further also approximately searched out the older sites — the lígōng (separate palaces) and biéguǎn (other lodges) — many were derelict.
If after another ten years and more, the older eunuchs are exhausted, the bequeathed traces gradually fade — there will be no way to manifest Our August Sovereign’s bēi gōngshì 卑宮室 (humble-palace) and yuē yuányòu 約園囿 (frugal-garden) virtuous restraint. Hence I have brushed these notes.”
He details the western and abridges the eastern, because his residence is at the western precinct. He records its rises and falls, and intermixes them with timely matters — wishing to display the brilliance of the Sage Reign, preserving as a fine talk of the Tàipíng (Era of Great Peace).
He further says: “Office-buildings and inner-section bureaus are recorded in the Huìdiǎn — these are not written. Matters not exactly verified — these are not written. What outsiders rarely glimpse — also dare not write.”
Because at the time the distance from the end of the Míng was only forty years — the previous-dynasty eunuchs still mostly extant; Shìqí entering and leaving the Inner Court, was able to inquire and investigate. Further long lodging beside, mornings and evenings examining and verifying — hence what is recorded is often reliable. Zhū Yízūn’s Rìxià jiùwén much selected and gathered from it. Now under imperial decree the corrections have been examined; Yízūn’s book — its citations are detailed and clear, the minute is exhaustive — this compilation is already encompassed within. Yet his draft-and-record initiative cannot be effaced; we therefore still record it, to provide for reference-and-verification.
Abstract
The Jīnáo tuìshí bǐjì is a major early-Qīng documentary monograph on the Xīyuán (Western Imperial Garden) of Beijing — the Sānhǎi (Three Seas, Běihǎi, Zhōnghǎi, Nánhǎi) and adjacent imperial precincts immediately west of the Forbidden City. Its author Gāo Shìqí (1645–1704, zì Dànrén 澹人, hào Jiāngcūn 江村; CBDB record by alternate id), of Pínghú in Zhèjiāng, was one of the most important Kāng-xī-era literati-officials, the Kāngxī emperor’s favorite Hànlín scholar, and a major bibliophile and kǎogé scholar.
The dating is exceptionally precise: composition was in Kāngxī jiǎzǐ (1684), seven years after Gāo’s bestowed residence at the Tàiyèchí xī in dīngsì (1677). The Sìkù tíyào notes that the book was composed when the early-Qīng was only forty years past the Míng fall; Gāo had access to the surviving Míng-era eunuchs of the Wànlì / Tiānqǐ / Chóngzhēn imperial households for oral testimony on the now-derelict Míng pavilions and palaces of the Xīyuán.
The work was a principal source for Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊’s far more comprehensive Rìxià jiùwén — but the Sìkù compilers retain Gāo’s monograph for its principal-source value (oral testimony from late-Míng eunuchs) which Zhū’s work absorbs but does not preserve in the original form. The text is preserved in the Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 588.4).
The methodological scrupulosity of the work — explicit exclusion of matters in the Huìdiǎn, of matters not confidently verified, and of matters not safely public — is exemplary of early-Qīng court-literary discretion under the politically delicate conditions of post-conquest cataloguing of Míng imperial topography.
Translations and research
No comprehensive English translation. Cited in: Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (UC Press, 2000) — the principal English-language monograph on Beijing urban-historical scholarship; Geremie R. Barmé, The Forbidden City (Harvard, 2008); Pierre-Henri Durand, Lettrés et pouvoirs: un procès littéraire dans la Chine impériale (EHESS, 1992) on Gāo Shìqí. For Gāo’s career see ECCP s.v. Kao Shih-ch’i. Standard Chinese reference: Hé Yán-zhē 何延喆, Hǎi-zǐ chéng 海子城 (Yān-shān, 1989).
Other points of interest
The work’s dating — seven years of personal observation between 1677 and 1684 — and its near-complete reliance on the oral testimony of surviving late-Míng eunuchs make it the single most authoritative early-Qīng documentary source for the late-Míng Xīyuán topography. The Sìkù compilers’ explicit retention of the work despite Zhū Yízūn’s Rìxià jiùwén having absorbed it is a notable instance of preservation by source-status.
Links
- Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào
- Wikidata
- ECCP s.v. Kao Shih-ch’i