Wúzhōng jīnshí xīnbiān 吳中金石新編
A New Compilation of Sūzhōu Inscriptions
by 陳暐 (Chén Wěi, fl. ca. 1488–1505)
About the work
An 8-juan early-Míng jīnshí compilation focused on Sūzhōu prefecture’s local administrative inscriptions, compiled by the Sūzhōu tōngpàn Chén Wěi during the Hóngzhì era together with Kuàng Fán 鄺璠 (Wúxiàn magistrate), Pǔ Yīngxiáng 浦應祥, and Zhù Yǔnmíng 祝允明 (the calligrapher). Coverage is restricted to early-Míng inscriptions, by deliberate choice — the editors pass over Hàn-Tang and earlier material as already covered in earlier compendia. The ~100 entries are organised into seven topical headings: (i) school-and-government buildings (學校官宇), (ii) granaries (倉), (iii) post-stations (驛), (iv) water control (水利), (v) bridges (橋梁), (vi) ancestral and Buddhist temples and Daoist abbeys (祠廟寺觀), and (vii) miscellaneous stelae. Each inscription is reproduced in full (on Zhū Guī’s Míngjì lù KR2n0028 model). The work explicitly excludes encomiastic or funerary inscriptions, retaining only those with administrative-historical value — making it an unusual jīnshí-cum-administrative gazetteer rather than a connoisseurial-literary compilation.
Tiyao
[Translated and condensed from the Sìkù tíyào]
Compiled by Chén Wěi of the Míng. Wěi, zì Yàoqīng, of Hénán. In the Hóngzhì era he served as Sūzhōu tōngpàn. With Kuàng Fán the magistrate of Wúxiàn, and the jǔrén Pǔ Yīngxiáng and Zhù Yǔnmíng et al., he gathered the stone inscriptions of the prefecture and collated them. From schools, government buildings, granaries, post-stations, water-control, bridges, down through temples and abbeys, the stelae are categorised: seven headings, more than a hundred pieces, all reproduced in full, on Zhū Guī’s Míngjì lù model.
When epigraphic compilers gather material, the principal aim is to bring out the obscure and to verify the old; hence Ōuyáng, Zhào, and Hóng concentrated on ancient inscriptions. This compilation, finding Hàn-Tang and earlier inscriptions adequately covered elsewhere, takes only early-Míng stelae. The principle is therefore narrower than its predecessors. But what is recorded — Jìnóng, Yǒngnóng cāng (granary records) — fully describes the storage administration; the Xǔpǔ, Húchuān, Táng records also lay out the dredging-and-water-control essentials; both sets are useful for prefectural management. Encomiastic and grave-praise inscriptions are excluded; the editorial principle is therefore careful and rigorous. Many of the recorded texts are otherwise not in gazetteers or literary anthologies — only this book preserves them. Useful as ancillary evidence for prefectural government as a “supplement to the gazetteer”. The book is not without value.
Abstract
The Wúzhōng jīnshí xīnbiān is one of the earliest Míng locally focused jīnshí compendia and an unusual specimen of jīnshí-as-administrative-evidence. The catalog meta dynasty 明 is correct but no dates given. The Hóngzhì era (1488–1505) bracket is set notBefore 1488 / notAfter 1505 here, on the basis of Chén Wěi’s Sūzhōu tōngpàn tenure and the involvement of Zhù Yǔnmíng (1461–1527, active in early-Míng Sūzhōu literary world).
The work’s contributions:
- Period-restricted jīnshí. Coverage of early-Míng inscriptions only — an unusually narrow chronological scope, justified by the Sìkù editors as a sensible division of labour.
- Topical-administrative organisation. Seven topical categories — school, granary, post, water, bridge, temple, miscellaneous — focused on administrative function, not on connoisseurial-genre.
- Exclusion of encomiastic / funerary inscriptions. The editorial principle of focusing only on administratively useful inscriptions makes this a near-prototype of Qing local-gazetteer jīnshí sections.
- Sūzhōu local history. For Sūzhōu administrative history (granaries, water control, etc.) the Wúzhōng jīnshí xīnbiān preserves several early-Míng documents otherwise lost.
CBDB has no entry for Chén Wěi.
Translations and research
No English translation. Studies:
- Pǔ Yīngxiáng 浦應祥 and Zhù Yǔnmíng 祝允明 are figures of the early-Míng Sūzhōu literary circle treated in standard works on the period (Frederick W. Mote, Imperial China 900–1800; Wai-yee Li, etc.).
- Specialised studies of Sūzhōu local administration in the Hóngzhì-Zhèngdé eras regularly use this book as a primary source.
Other points of interest
The work’s collaborative composition — tōngpàn, magistrate, and senior jǔrén literati working jointly — is exemplary of the early-Míng intersection of administrative office and local literary culture in Sūzhōu, the most economically and culturally vibrant of Míng prefectures.
Links
- Wikipedia: no dedicated page
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15914164