Selections from the Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, Volume One (Annals)

About this gazetteer and this volume

The Kangxi edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer runs to eleven volumes plus a prefatory volume. Volume One, the 邑纪 or "annals", is the only annalistic part of the book: it runs from the Spring and Autumn period to the Shunzhi reign, giving each entry a sexagenary date and, where needed, the corresponding Western year. Its preface explains how it was compiled: "the old gazetteer began its record in the Spring and Autumn period and ended in the seventh year of the Wanli era … more than eighty years have passed since the eighth year of Wanli without any compilation, and we have now exerted ourselves in searching and gathering to continue the earlier gazetteer." The volume is therefore a continuation built on top of the older annalistic entries, and the added passages keep markers such as 旧志未载, "not recorded in the old gazetteer", and 旧志略, "abbreviated in the old gazetteer", by which the new entries can be identified.

Five entries are taken here, corresponding to five points in the history of Lishui: the founding of the county, its elevation to a prefecture, its reduction back to a county, the cutting of a river, and the building of a pagoda. The original text is in the public domain and is reproduced with its volume and entry reference; the renderings and notes are written by this site.

The selections

1. Lishui County established in 591

十一年辛亥，析溧阳西北境及丹阳故地置溧水县，仍隶蒋州。县之始。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·隋开皇十一年辛亥

Rendering (translation, not the original text). In the eleventh year of the Kaihuang era, a tract was carved out of the northwestern part of Liyang and the former lands of Danyang, and Lishui County was established, still under Jiangzhou. This was the beginning of Lishui as a county.

Note. The entry sets out three things at once: the year the county was founded, the territory it was taken from, and the prefecture it belonged to. The closing words 县之始, "the beginning of the county", are the gazetteer author's own conclusion and can be used directly as evidence for the founding date. The district government's "Historical Development" page agrees with it, and the two corroborate each other.

2. Lishui raised to a prefecture in 1295

成宗元贞元年乙未，升溧水为州，等为中。仍设达鲁花赤，出知州上。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·元元贞元年乙未

Rendering (translation). In the first year of the Yuanzhen era of Emperor Chengzong of the Yuan, Lishui was raised from a county to a zhou, or prefecture, of the middle rank. A darughachi was still appointed, holding rank above the prefect.

Note. The gazetteer records the elevation itself and the staffing of the prefecture, but does not set out the change in jurisdiction. The district government writes that "in the first year of the Yuanzhen era of the Yuan (1295) Lishui County was raised to Lishui Zhou, under Jiqing Circuit", supplying the circuit, which can be added here. The sexagenary date 乙未 corresponds to 1295.

3. Lishui reduced to a county in 1369

明太祖洪武二年己酉，改溧水州为县。令立学。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·明洪武二年己酉

Rendering (translation). In the second year of the Hongwu era, Lishui Zhou was changed back into a county, and an order was given to establish a county school.

Note. The entry puts the administrative change and the educational institution in one sentence, a common habit of annalistic gazetteers. The Yuan elevation and the Ming reduction are the only occasion on which Lishui moved between county and prefecture; it remained a county thereafter until it became a district in 2013.

4. The Yanzhi River cut in 1393

二十六年癸酉，八月，太祖命崇山侯李新至溧水，督有司凿县西境一带为河。凿石色赤，时名河胭脂。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·明洪武二十六年癸酉

Rendering (translation). In the eighth month of the twenty-sixth year, the founding emperor ordered Li Xin, Marquis of Chongshan, to go to Lishui and supervise the relevant offices in cutting a river through the western part of the county. The stone cut was red, and the river was then called Yanzhi.

Note. After this the original entry reproduces the emperor's order in full, and closes with the sentence "it is handed down that Li Xin took private advantage of a household, and the founding emperor put him to death". The words 相传, "it is handed down", are the gazetteer's own boundary and must be retained when the passage is cited; the story must not be rewritten as a statement of fact. For the detailed examination see "Dating the Yanzhi River and Its Method of Excavation".

5. A pagoda built in 1606

三十四年丙午，正月二夜，县西北隅有赤光一道，直抵东南。知县徐良彦即其地建浮图以镇之。详《永寿寺记》。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·明万历三十四年丙午

Rendering (translation). On the second night of the first month of the thirty-fourth year, a band of red light appeared in the northwestern corner of the county town and reached straight to the southeast. The zhixian (county magistrate) Xu Liangyan built a pagoda on that spot to suppress it. See the Record of Yongshou Temple for details.

Note. This is one of the earliest records of why the Yongshou Temple Pagoda, which survives and is a provincial protected site, was built. The red light is a phenomenon as the gazetteer reports it; this entry reproduces it without explaining its cause and without inferring any other purpose behind the building of the pagoda. The Record of Yongshou Temple referred to here belongs to the literary section of the same gazetteer and awaits excerpting.

How the English version handles gazetteer quotations

Under this site's rules, quotations from the old gazetteers keep the Chinese original in the English text, with an English rendering beside it, explicitly marked as a translation rather than the words of the original. Era names are kept in transliteration with the Western year supplied (as in "the eleventh year of the Kaihuang era, 591 CE"), dynasties use the standard English names, and official titles are transliterated first and then explained (as in "zhixian, county magistrate"). The purpose is to let an English reader see which sentence is the source and which is commentary.

Uncertainties

First, the printing year of this edition and the title page of its prefatory volume have not been seen in the original, and the source record is archived as link-registered. The time fields here therefore use the Kangxi period as a span, at a precision of a decade and marked as approximate, to be replaced with an exact year once the original is seen.

Second, only five entries are taken; the volume is not translated in full. The remaining entries on natural calamities, taxation and military affairs — for instance the thirty-fourth year of the Jiajing era, when "Japanese pirates attacked the walls of Lishui and the town nearly fell", or the fourth year of the Hongzhi era, when "the southwestern part of Lishui was detached to form Gaochun County" — are left for separate entries and are not treated here.