Famine and the Building of Fengxian Polder, 1588

Background

The Kangxi edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, juan 1, "Annals of the County", records drought at Lishui in 1587, the fifteenth year of the Wanli era, and the following year brought a great famine:

十六年戊子，岁大饥，人相食。知县杜允继申请应天府丞许，疏准动帑银，筑凤贤圩各埂，饥民赖之。是岁邑民汤凤冈、陈文心、龚廷机、杨鉴各捐谷赈之。见《义士传》。

Translated: In the sixteenth year, wuzi, there was a great famine and people ate one another. The magistrate Du Yunji applied to the assistant prefect of Yingtian Prefecture, surnamed Xu, and a memorial was approved releasing treasury silver to build the banks of Fengxian Polder, on which the starving depended. In the same year the local men Tang Fenggang, Chen Wenxin, Gong Tingji and Yang Jian each donated grain for relief. See the Biographies of Righteous Men.

Time and place

The work belongs to 1588, the sixteenth year of the Wanli era, the year of the famine. The gazetteer gives the name of the polder and says nothing about its position or boundaries, so this entry does not attempt to locate it.

What was done

The work was led by the magistrate Du Yunji. The gazetteer says he applied to the assistant prefect of Yingtian Prefecture, giving only the surname Xu; neither the man's name nor his full office is recorded. The money came from treasury silver, that is, silver released from the official coffers, which required a memorial to be approved first. The work itself was the building of the banks of Fengxian Polder, relief through labour, so that the famine victims had food. In the same year four local men, Tang Fenggang, Chen Wenxin, Gong Tingji and Yang Jian, each donated grain for relief; the gazetteer refers the reader to the Biographies of Righteous Men.

Consequences

The banks were completed and, in the gazetteer's words, the starving depended on them. In 1595, the twenty-third year of the Wanli era, a jiao flood — the gazetteer's term for a sudden, violent flood, discussed in the entry for that year — breached the county's polders, and the gazetteer notes that Fengxian Polder alone was unharmed. In the same year the magistrate Yu Yanxing urged the people to extend the banks, which then measured more than thirty li in all.

The polder's name in earlier gazetteers

The name Fengxian Polder does not begin in the Ming. The Southern Song Jingding Jiankang Zhi, juan 17, "Mountains" (Hills and Mounds), records Fengqi Mountain in Lishui County:

凤栖山在溧水县西南七十里，高一十六丈，周回八里，西并石臼湖。父老云昔有凤凰栖其上，因得名曰凰栖。此山属仪凤乡，迤北有凤贤圩，今作黄西，非也。

Translated: Fengqi Mountain lies seventy li south-west of Lishui County, sixteen zhang high with a circuit of eight li, bordering Shijiu Lake on the west. The elders say a phoenix once perched on it, which gave it the name Huangqi. The mountain belongs to Yifeng township, and to its north lies Fengxian Polder; the present writing "Huangxi" is wrong.

So a polder named Fengxian already existed in Yifeng township (near Shijiu Lake) in the Southern Song. The Kangxi gazetteer, juan 5, "Mountains", in its entry on Fengqi Mountain, follows the same account: "Fengqi Mountain, seventy li to the south-west, overlooking Shijiu Lake … it belongs to Yifeng township, and there is Fengxian Polder."

The Guangxu edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, juan 6, "Taxation: Remission and Relief", also records the events of 1588: "In the sixteenth year of the Wanli era there was a great famine, and the magistrate Du Yunji asked to release treasury funds to build Fengxian Polder, on which the starving depended" — agreeing with the Kangxi gazetteer.

Uncertainties

First, the number of banks, their length and the sum spent are all unrecorded, and this entry makes no estimate. Second, the assistant prefect is known only by the surname Xu, and the man remains unidentified. Third, whether the banks built in 1588 and those extended in 1595 were the same stretch of embankment is not stated.

Fourth, a search across all seven source layers found the famine of 1588 and the building of Fengxian Polder with treasury silver only in the Kangxi and Guangxu editions of the Lishui county gazetteer (both from the county's single line of gazetteer compilation), and in no record outside that line — not in the standard histories, the veritable records or the provincial gazetteer. Only the name Fengxian Polder is earlier, appearing in the Southern Song Jingding Jiankang Zhi, juan 17 (Yifeng township, by Shijiu Lake), which shows the polder was old but is not the same as the building of 1588. As the direct record of the event is confined to the gazetteer line, confidence has been lowered from high to medium.