Zeng Zhen Builds the Stone Wall of Lishui, 1558

Background

The gazetteer places the building of the wall in 1558. Three years earlier it records an attack by Japanese pirates in which the town was nearly lost:

三十四年乙卯，倭犯溧水城，几陷。勇士李佛保死之。事详《传》。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·三十四年乙卯

Translated: In the thirty-fourth year, Japanese pirates attacked the town of Lishui, which nearly fell. The brave man Li Fobao died. See the biography for details.

Three entries separate the two passages: one records that the town nearly fell, the other that a stone wall was built. The gazetteer does not put the wall and the pirate raid in the same sentence, and this entry does not decide for the source that the wall was built against pirates. Also worth noting is the entry for 1538, when dragons emerging from the hills at Lushan and Ma'anshan in Lishui "swept the city walls away and drowned people and livestock beyond counting", showing that the walls had earlier been damaged by water.

Time and place

The wall was built in 1558 at the county town of Lishui, under the magistrate Zeng Zhen.

What was done

三十七年戊午，知县曾震筑溧水石城。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·三十七年戊午

Translated: In the thirty-seventh year, the zhixian (county magistrate) Zeng Zhen built the stone wall of Lishui.

This one sentence is the whole entry; it gives no length, no number of gates, no material and no duration of work.

Consequences

The county town of Lishui had a stone wall from that year. The next year the gazetteer records that floods burst the polders and washed away houses, and that the county school was moved inside the west gate, which shows that "the west gate" was already a standard way of locating places in the town. No later entry records repairs to the wall or the addition of gates.

The history of the town wall (Qianlong Jiangnan Tongzhi)

The Kangxi gazetteer has only one sentence on the wall: "In the thirty-seventh year, wuwu, the magistrate Zeng Zhen built the stone wall of Lishui." The Qianlong Jiangnan Tongzhi, juan 20, "Geography: City Walls", records the history of the Lishui town wall in more detail:

溧水县隋始筑城周五里有奇，宋绍定中县令史弥巩修之。明初知州邓鉴更筑周七百余丈，门有六。洪武间知县郭云重建。正德中知县陈铭甃以砖，寻毁；知县陈宪因其址筑土城。嘉靖初知县王从善扩其东隅，建石桥以泄水。十年水败东南隅，知县张问行修。十七年水复溃。三十六年知县曾震始造石城，高三丈，广如旧，然石甃其外而内犹土也。城东西有池。

Translated: The town of Lishui was first walled in the Sui, with a circuit of a little over five li; in the Shaoding period of the Song the magistrate Shi Migong repaired it. Early in the Ming the subprefect Deng Jian rebuilt it with a circuit of more than seven hundred zhang and six gates. Under Hongwu the magistrate Guo Yun rebuilt it. In the Zhengde period the magistrate Chen Ming faced it with brick, but it soon fell into ruin, and the magistrate Chen Xian built an earthen wall on its foundation. Early in the Jiajing era the magistrate Wang Congshan extended its eastern corner and built a stone bridge to release water. In the tenth year water breached the south-east corner, and the magistrate Zhang Wenxing repaired it; in the seventeenth year water breached it again. In the thirty-sixth year the magistrate Zeng Zhen first built a stone wall, three zhang high and as wide as before, but stone-faced outside and still earthen within. There were moats east and west of the town.

From this several things follow: the town already had a wall in the Sui (a circuit of a little over five li), and early in the Ming Deng Jian rebuilt it with six gates, so before 1558 the town was not unwalled but had an earthen wall (briefly brick-faced under Zhengde); the breaches of the tenth and seventeenth years match the gazetteer's note for 1538 that "dragons emerged, sweeping the city walls away"; the Jiangnan Tongzhi dates Zeng Zhen's stone wall to the "thirty-sixth year," one year earlier than the Kangxi gazetteer's "thirty-seventh"; and it adds the wall's form — "three zhang high, as wide as before, stone-faced outside and still earthen within, with moats east and west."

Uncertainties

First, the Kangxi gazetteer gives no circumference, number of gates or stone used; the Qianlong Jiangnan Tongzhi adds the wall's form ("three zhang high, as wide as before, stone-faced outside and still earthen within, with moats east and west") and records that the earlier town wall under the Sui and early Ming was earthen (Deng Jian's rebuilding had a circuit of more than seven hundred zhang and six gates). Whether the stone wall kept the early Ming dimensions the source says only "as wide as before," without a figure, and no estimate is made here.

Second, it does not state that the wall was built because of the pirate raid of 1555. The two entries stand next to each other and may be read as a clue, but not as proof, so the confidence of this entry is set to medium.

Third, the entry for 1555 refers the story of Li Fobao to a biography not contained in this volume; only his name and death are recorded here.

Fourth, no source relates the stone wall to the west gate mentioned in 1559, and the line of the wall is not drawn here from the phrase "inside the west gate".

Fifth, a search across all seven source layers added the Qianlong Jiangnan Tongzhi, juan 20, as an independent source outside the county gazetteer for the town wall's history and the stone wall's form; but it dates the building to the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing, one year earlier than the Kangxi gazetteer's thirty-seventh, and the entry sets the two side by side without choosing, so confidence remains medium.