Yìbù tánzī 益部談資
Conversational Material on the Yì Region (Sìchuān) by 何宇度 (Hé Yǔdù, fl. late Wànlì) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 3-juan late-Míng bǐjì on Sìchuān mountains, rivers, products, and historical yìshì (stray incidents), composed by Hé Yǔdù during his term as Tōngpàn of Kuízhōu 夔州 in eastern Sìchuān. Divided into three (upper, middle, lower) juan; the title tánzī (“conversational material”) signals its self-conscious shuōbù generic placement rather than the tújīng (gazetteer) format. The Sìkù tíyào commends its concision and elegance compared to Cáo Xuéquán’s much larger Shǔzhōng guǎngjì KR2k0126 of similar period; Cáo’s work is more comprehensive but more diffuse, while Hé’s is “jiǎn ér yǒu yào” (concise yet substantive). The original imprint carries a colophon by the late-Míng critic Lǐ Wéizhēn 李維楨 highly recommending the work.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Yìbù tánzī in three juan was composed by Hé Yǔdù, Kuízhōu tōngpàn of Míng. What is recorded is all the mountains-rivers-and-products of Sìchuān, with the lost incidents of past and present, divided into upper, middle, and lower juan. Because the format does not resemble a tújīng, it is signed tánzī — taking its place in the shuōbù school.
The yúdì writings are originally for recording prefectural-and-county boundaries, road distances, fortifications, lands, and household-numbers, for the convenience of kǎohé; while of xiānxián and fēngsú and the like — biographies — earlier persons often composed completed books, then broadly selected the bequeathed reports — none of these are unable to provide tánzhù. The Shǔ regional gazetteer tradition begins with Yáng Xióng’s Shǔwáng běnjì, Qiáo Zhōu’s Sānbā jì, and Lǐ Kè’s Yìzhōu jì as the oldest. Although these works are not all transmitted, in the main much was likewise mixed-recorded events, taken to provide zhǎnggù. Down from the Táng, what is seen in the various dynastic histories’ yìwén — like Dù Guāngtíng’s Xù Chéngdū jì, Zhào Biàn’s Chéngdū gǔjīn jí jì, and the various Sòng-period túzhì of Tōngchuān, Línqióng, Zhōngzhōu, Diànjiāng, and Kuízhōu — all these are now scattered and lost; therefore the gleaning and gathering is precisely what the kǎodìng zhě should not abandon.
This work draws supplementary material from many works; though it cannot be precise-and-thorough without lacuna, it is not yet diffuse-and-rambling. Cáo Xuéquán’s Shǔzhōng míngshèng jì KR2k0126 later evidence-collects more broadly, but somewhat extends to the rambling — not as elegant-clean as this work. Among Míng-period writings it can still be called concise and substantive. The original carries a colophon by Lǐ Wéizhēn that also extols it as a fine recension. Respectfully proof-read in the eighth 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 Yìbù tánzī is a late-Míng (probably late Wànlì, ca. 1600–1620) bǐjì on Sìchuān, composed by Hé Yǔdù 何宇度 (CBDB 128397) during his term as Tōngpàn of Kuízhōu (modern Fèngjié, eastern Sìchuān). Hé’s biographical details are otherwise unrecorded; the original carries a colophon by Lǐ Wéizhēn 李維楨 (1547–1626), the late-Míng Wànlì-era literary critic, dating the imprint to the late Wànlì period.
The work is principally valuable as a concise late-Míng counterpoint to Cáo Xuéquán’s monumental Shǔzhōng guǎngjì KR2k0126 of similar period — the two works treating the same regional subject from opposite ends of the bǐjì spectrum (Cáo’s encyclopedic, Hé’s elegant-and-compact). It draws on the lost regional gazetteer tradition of Sìchuān (the Yáng Xióng Shǔwáng běnjì, Qiáo Zhōu Sānbā jì, Lǐ Kè Yìzhōu jì, Dù Guāngtíng Xù Chéngdū jì, Zhào Biàn Chéngdū gǔjīn jí jì, and the various Sòng-period túzhì of Tōngchuān, Línqióng, Zhōngzhōu, Diànjiāng, and Kuízhōu) and is one of the principal Míng-period witnesses to that lost literature.
The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 592.2).
Translations and research
No comprehensive English translation. See L. Carrington Goodrich, ed., Dictionary of Ming Biography (Columbia, 1976), s.v. Hé Yǔ-dù; for the broader context of late-Míng bǐ-jì on Sìchuān see Stephen Owen, Remembrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature (Harvard, 1986).
Links
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