Shǔzhōng guǎngjì 蜀中廣記
Comprehensive Record of Sìchuān by 曹學佺 (Cáo Xuéquán, 1573–1646) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 108-juan monumental late-Míng comprehensive geographical-cultural compendium on Sìchuān, composed by Cáo Xuéquán during his term as Sìchuān yòu cānzhèng and subsequent promotion to Àncháshǐ (ca. 1605–1611). One of the largest Míng-period regional encyclopedias, it gathers material under twelve subject-categories: míngshèng (famous sites), biānfáng (frontier defence), tōngshì (general commentary), rénwù (persons), fāngwù (local products), xiān (Daoist), shì (Buddhist), yóuhuàn (visiting officials), fēngsú (customs), zhùzuò (writings), shīhuà (poetry-talk), and huàyuàn (painting and calligraphy). The work is the standard pre-Qīng comprehensive reference for Sìchuān cultural history. It supplements (and is partly fed by) Cáo’s other major Sìchuān-related compilation, the QuánShǔ yìwén zhì 全蜀藝文志. The Sìkù tíyào commends the work for its breadth (“not unworthy of the name guǎngjì”) while noting some lapses in administrative detail (e.g. the treatment of Gāozhōu as a county rather than a Míng-period prefecture; the misplacement of Zīyáng among the Rénshòu and Jǐngyán counties rather than under Jiǎnzhōu) and the inclusion of a number of misattributions (a famous cí-poem misascribed to Sū Shì; the Shǔzhōng shízhì’s assignment of the Wùlèi xiānggǎn zhì to Sū Shì).
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Shǔzhōng guǎngjì in 108 juan was composed by Cáo Xuéquán of Míng. Xuéquán’s Yìjīng tōnglùn has already been catalogued. Xuéquán once held office as Sìchuān yòu cānzhèng, promoted to Àncháshǐ. This work is presumably composed during that time. Twelve categories in all: míngshèng, biānfáng, tōngshì, rénwù, fāngwù, xiān, shì, yóuhuàn, fēngsú, zhùzuò, shīhuà, huàyuàn — gathering and selecting in great abundance, hardly unworthy of the name guǎngjì.
Among them: as for Xùzhōufǔ’s Gāozhōu, the Míngshǐ Dìlǐzhì says: in Hóngwǔ 5 changed from zhōu to xiàn; in Zhèngdé 13 reverted to zhōu, with Gǒng and Yúnlián, three counties subordinate. This work still calls Gāozhōu a county, and the two counties also are not given as subordinate. Again, Chéngdūfǔ’s Zīyáng xiàn — the Míngshǐ Dìlǐzhì lists it under Jiǎnzhōu; this work does not place it under Jiǎnzhōu but separately after Rénshòu and Jǐngyán; both these are not free of arrangement-laxity.
Wáng Shìzhēn’s Gǔfūyútíng zálù says: the Dānqiān lù records a Dōngpō poem-stanza presented to Yáng Dòng of Qīngshén — Yǔnwén shìyè cōngróngliǎo / yào Míné rénwù hòu xiān xiāngzhào jiàn / shuōjiào jūnwáng céng yǒu wèn / sì cǐ réncái duō shǎo — and cites a xiǎoshuō: “Gāozōng asked Mǎ Qí: of Shǔzhōng human talent like Yǔnwén (= Yú Yǔnwén, the Cǎishí hero of Lóngxīng 1, 1161), how many?” Examining: Yǔnwén’s Cǎishí military exploit was after the Crossing-South; Dōngpō had long been dead. How could there be such a poem already? Yet Cáo Néngshǐ’s Shǔzhōng shízhì also records it, with no rebuttal whatever. He further says: the Shǔzhōng shízhì takes the Wùlèi xiānggǎn zhì in 18 juan to be Dōngpō’s composition — extreme error. The corruptions and contradictions thus appear here and there. Presumably when his evidence is broadly drawn, the precise and the rough are all included; same and different appear together; this is the inevitable result of the situation. In substance it does not damage the larger body. Those discussing Sìchuān zhǎnggù must in the end take the QuánShǔ yìwénzhì and this work as the watering-pool for selecting material. Respectfully proof-read in the sixth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778).
Director-General compilers (chén /) Jǐ Yún, (chén /) Lù Xīxióng, (chén /) Sūn Shìyì; Director-General proof-reader (chén /) Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Shǔzhōng guǎngjì is the principal late-Míng comprehensive cultural-and-topographical encyclopedia on Sìchuān and the standard pre-Qīng reference for that region. It was composed by Cáo Xuéquán 曹學佺 (1573–1646; zì Néngshǐ 能始, hào Yànshí 雁石; CBDB 124553; native of Hóuguān 侯官 in Fújiàn) — late-Míng polymath, jìnshì of Wànlì 23 (1595), Sìchuān provincial commissioner (Yòu cānzhèng and Àncháshǐ) ca. 1605–1611, later one of the leading scholars of the Dōnglín / Fùshè generation, who hanged himself in Lóngwǔ 2 (1646) on the fall of Fúzhōu to the Qīng. Cáo’s other major works include the Yìjīng tōnglùn 易經通論 (philosophical commentary on the Yìjīng), the QuánShǔ yìwénzhì 全蜀藝文志 (anthology of Sìchuān literary works, the companion to the Shǔzhōng guǎngjì), the Mǐnzhōng zhì 閩中志 (gazetteer of Fújiàn), and the Shícāng lìdài shī xuǎn 石倉歷代詩選 (a 506-juan poetry anthology, one of the largest of the Míng).
The Shǔzhōng guǎngjì’s twelve thematic divisions provide a comprehensive cultural inventory of Sìchuān, with particularly detailed treatment of: (i) the biānfáng category — frontier defence material on the Tibetan and southwestern indigenous peoples; (ii) the xiān and shì categories — religious-historical compilations of Daoist and Buddhist material on Sìchuān, important for the history of the region’s religious traditions including the Qīngchéng and Hèmíngshān centres; (iii) the huàyuàn category — late-Míng art-historical material on the Sìchuān painting tradition. The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vols. 591.1 to 592.1), occupying the largest single-work allocation in the dìlǐ category.
Translations and research
No comprehensive English translation. See L. Carrington Goodrich, ed., Dictionary of Ming Biography (Columbia, 1976), s.v. Cáo Xué-quán; Hsiao Chi-ching 蕭啟慶, Cáo Xué-quán yánjiū 曹學佺研究 (Taiwan, 1990s); Jonathan Spence, The Death of Woman Wang (Penguin, 1978), comparative for late-Míng provincial-administrative literature. The Shǔ-zhōng guǎng-jì itself is regularly cited in studies of pre-modern Sìchuān cultural history, including Stephen Owen’s poetry-historiography and recent work on the Three Gorges literary-cultural tradition.
Other points of interest
The work’s fāngwù category is the single largest pre-modern Chinese-language inventory of Sìchuān local products and is regularly used by historians of late-Míng economic geography. The biānfáng category, drawing on Cáo’s experience as Sìchuān provincial commissioner during the period of the Yáng Yìnglóng rebellion (1599–1600), is among the principal sources for late-Míng south-western indigenous-peoples administrative history.
Links
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11201541 (Cáo Xuéquán)
- Goodrich, Dictionary of Ming Biography (1976), s.v. Cáo Xuéquán