Héshuò fǎnggǔ jì 河朔訪古記
Record of Antiquarian Visits in the Hé-shuò Region by 納新 (Nàxīn, 14th c., Bóloluò / Baroghul) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 3-juan Yuán-period antiquarian travel-record on the Héshuò 河朔 (north of the Yellow River) region — Qí, Lǔ, Chén, Cài, Jìn, Wèi, Yān, Zhào — composed by Nàxīn 納新 (zì Yìzhī 易之), a Sèmùrén of the Western Regions of Bóloluò lineage (= modern Tarbaghatai region of Xīnjiāng), based on his journey of Zhìzhèng 5 (1345) from his Zhèjiāng base across the Huái and the Yellow River through the central plain. Originally in 16 juan, with verse compositions appended; now lost as a complete work, the Sìkù compilers reconstructed three juan (1: Zhēndìnglù; 2: Hénánlù; 3: miscellaneous) from the 134 entries scattered in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, with Liú Rénběn’s 劉仁本 original preface restored. The verse compositions are no longer recoverable. The work is a major Yuán-period source on the historical topography, antiquities, and jīnshí (epigraphy) of the Yellow-River-North heartland — the Sìkù compilers commend it for recording many gǔjì and stele-inscriptions not detailed in the standard gazetteer tradition.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Héshuò fǎnggǔ jì in three juan does not bear the compiler’s name. Jiāo Hóng’s Guóshǐ jīngjí zhì of Míng records it but also does not say who composed it.
Examining: Liú Rénběn of Yuán’s Yǔtíng jí has a preface to this work saying: “the present Hànlín guóshǐyuàn biānxiū guān, of Bóloluò clan, Nàxīn Yìzhī, whose ancestors had moved their family to Yín; in Zhìzhèng 5 (1345) [Nàxīn] took his luggage out of Zhè, crossed the Huái, traversed the Hé, and went through the ruins of Qí, Lǔ, Chén, Cài, Jìn, Wèi, Yān, Zhào — paying tribute at ancient mountains-and-rivers, city-walls, mounds-and-tombs, palaces-and-houses, the kings-and-hegemons, the persons, the dignitaries-and-documents, the bequeathed traces and old stories, down to the recent JīnSòng wars and the changes of borders — some obtained from tújīng and dìzhì, some heard from old men and old families about the bequeathed style and customs, all examined and verified; at night, returning to lodging, set down on paper. With what touched his feeling and roused his ardent indignation, he composed poems and songs to follow them. Collectively titled Héshuò fǎnggǔ jì, in 16 juan.” So this book is in fact composed by Nàxīn; Mr. Jiāo’s examination was not careful. The preface says 16 juan; Mr. Jiāo makes it 12 juan — also wrong.
Nàxīn, zì Yìzhī, descended from the Northwest Bóloluò, and so used it as his clan-name. Bóloluò, by examining the Qīndìng Xīyù túzhì, is today’s Tarbaghatai. In Yuán times the Sèmù peoples were scattered across the realm — hence Nàxīn lodged at Nányáng, later moved to Yínxiàn. He was first appointed shānzhǎng (rector) of the Zhèdōng Dōnghú shūyuàn; by recommendation given Hànlín biānxiū guān. His Jīntái jí still has a printed edition; only this work has long been lost.
What is now scattered in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn — only 134 entries, all within Zhēndìng and Hénán; the rest does not survive. Further, what Rénběn called the appended poems and songs are also no longer to be seen. But based on the present surviving entries, the mountains-and-rivers and ancient sites are mostly not detailed in past gazetteers; while the jīnshí bequeathed inscriptions are spoken of even more thoroughly — all useful as aids to kǎozhèng. We have respectfully gathered and edited them, examined the routes-and-borders, with each grouping by category: Zhēndìnglù as one juan, Hénánlù as one juan; we still record Liú Rénběn’s original preface as a frontispiece. Although among the residue from damage only one or two in ten survive, the contour is still discernible and the order traceable. Respectfully proof-read.
Abstract
The Héshuò fǎnggǔ jì is one of the principal Yuán-period antiquarian-and-epigraphic yóujì on the Yellow-River-North heartland (Héběi, Hénán, the Tàiháng range, the Yellow-River fords). It was composed by Nàxīn 納新 (zì Yìzhī 易之, fl. 1340s), a Sèmùrén (Western-Region peoples in Yuán-period bureaucratic categorisation) of Bóloluò / Baroghul lineage — the Sìkù tíyào identifies the Bóloluò with the Tarbaghatai region (modern north-western Xīnjiāng / eastern Kazakhstan). His ancestors had migrated from the Northwest first to Nányáng then to Yínxiàn 鄞縣 (modern Níngbō); Nàxīn served as shānzhǎng of the Dōnghú shūyuàn in Zhèdōng before being recommended to a Hànlín editorship.
The journey was made in Zhìzhèng 5 (1345) from Zhèjiāng across the Huái and the Hé into the historical heartland; the resulting work was a 16-juan narrative-and-verse account of antiquities visited en route. Only the prose portions of two juan-equivalents (Zhēndìnglù and Hénánlù, 134 entries in all) survive in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn fragments reconstituted by the Sìkù editors as 3 juan; the verse compositions are lost.
The work is unusually important as one of the principal Yuán-period works in the Chinese antiquarian-travel tradition by an ethnically non-Han author, and as a source on Yuán-period epigraphy of the central plain (the work records steles and inscriptions otherwise lost). Nàxīn’s other extant work is the Jīntái jí 金臺集, a collection of his poems.
The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 593.2).
Translations and research
No comprehensive English translation. See Igor de Rachewiltz et al., eds., In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yüan Period (Wiesbaden, 1993), for the Sè-mù-rén literati context; Sherman Lee, Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (Cleveland, 1968); Frederick W. Mote, Imperial China, 900–1800 (HUP, 1999), pp. 484–540 on Yuán literati culture; the entry on Nà-xīn in Igor de Rachewiltz, ed., In the Service of the Khan. For the yóu-jì genre see James M. Hargett, Stairway to Heaven (SUNY, 2006).
Other points of interest
The work is one of the most prominent Yuán-period contributions to Chinese-language antiquarian travel-writing by a non-Han author, exemplifying the Yuán-period synthesis of Chinese literary forms with the ethnic and geographical diversity of the Sèmùrén class.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet linked
- de Rachewiltz, In the Service of the Khan (Wiesbaden, 1993)