The Biaozhong Shrine to Qi Tai, 1525

Background

Qi Tai was a native of Lishui and Minister of War under the Jianwen emperor, and died in the Jingnan Campaign. In 1425 his kin were pardoned and their property restored, but the gazetteer records no sacrifice to him at that time. In 1525 the magistrate Wang Congshan asked that he be sacrificed to in Lishui and had a shrine named Biaozhong.

What was done

四年乙酉，知县王从善请祀齐泰于溧水，祠曰「表忠」。申免抛荒粮米。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·四年乙酉

Translated: In the fourth year, the zhixian (county magistrate) Wang Congshan asked that Qi Tai be sacrificed to in Lishui, and the shrine was called Biaozhong. He also petitioned for remission of the tax on abandoned fields.

The entry puts two things in the same year: the request for a sacrifice to Qi Tai, with the shrine named Biaozhong, and the petition for remission of tax on abandoned fields. The wording is "asked that he be sacrificed to", that is, a request made by the magistrate to higher authority; the gazetteer does not record the paperwork of approval.

Consequences

The Biaozhong Shrine became the place where Qi Tai was sacrificed to in Lishui, and the county's observances for him were attached to it thereafter. In 1621 the court pardoned the thirty-eight households exiled with Qi Tai and returned them to the Lishui registers, releasing the last of those implicated. The other matter of 1525, the remission of tax on abandoned fields, belongs to the same run of disaster as the drought of 1523 and the epidemic of 1524.

Uncertainties

First, the gazetteer gives no site, form, cost or completion date for the shrine; only the name Biaozhong is recorded.

Second, it does not say whether the request was granted at once; the wording can be read as approval, but the process and date of approval are not given.

Third, the amount remitted and the area of abandoned fields are not recorded.

Fourth, the circumstances of Qi Tai's death are referred to a biography not contained in this volume, and are not reconstructed here.