Yongfeng Polder Granted to Qin Hui, 1153 CE

Date and content

In 1153 CE, the twenty-third year of the Shaoxing era, the Yongfeng Polder was granted to Qin Hui. The entry itself is one sentence, followed by the compiler's own note explaining why the affair was included:

绍兴二十三年癸酉，以永丰圩田赐秦桧。旧志云，郡府志载此事，而不专言溧水。今溧水有永丰圩，故采入以备详考。后孝宗赐都统司云云，同此。

Translated: In the twenty-third year of the Shaoxing era, the Yongfeng Polder was granted to Qin Hui. The old gazetteer says that the commandery and prefectural gazetteers record this affair, but do not speak of Lishui in particular. Lishui now has the Yongfeng Polder, so the entry is taken in for detailed examination. The later grant to the commandant's office under Emperor Xiaozong is treated in the same way. This is a translation, not the words of the original.

Everything after "the old gazetteer says" is the compiler's note. It states that the entry was not in the earlier gazetteer, that it was taken in because a polder of the name lay in Lishui, and that the purpose was further examination rather than a settled conclusion.

The administrative compilations

The Song Huiyao Jigao, "Food and Money 8", and the Wenxian Tongkao, juan 6, record the affair in more detail than the gazetteer and identify the polder as one of Jiankang Prefecture:

绍兴二十三年正月，诏以永丰圩赐秦桧。桧死，圩复归有司。

Translated: In the first month of the twenty-third year of the Shaoxing era, an edict granted the Yongfeng Polder to Qin Hui. On Qin Hui's death the polder reverted to the state. This is a translation, not the words of the original.

Both compilations also give its origin and the sequence of grants, through the words of officials and of the grain-transport commissioner Han Yuanji:

江东转运司奏：永丰圩自政和五年围湖成田，今五十余载，横截水势，每遇泛涨，冲决民圩，为害非细。

Translated: The Jiangdong transport office memorialised: the Yongfeng Polder has been farmland enclosed from a lake since the fifth year of Zhenghe [1115], more than fifty years now; it cuts across the flow of the water, and whenever the river rises it bursts the people's polders and does no small harm. This is a translation, not the words of the original.

其后漕臣韩元吉言：此圩初是百姓请佃，后以赐蔡京，又以赐韩世忠，又赐秦桧，继拨隶行宫，今隶总所。五十年间，皆权臣大将之家，又在御府……

Translated: Later the grain-transport commissioner Han Yuanji said: this polder was at first petitioned for by commoners to farm; afterwards it was granted to Cai Jing, then granted to Han Shizhong, then granted to Qin Hui, and next assigned to the imperial household, and now it belongs to the general accounting office. Over fifty years it has always been in the hands of powerful ministers and great generals, and then of the palace. This is a translation, not the words of the original.

Three points follow from the compilations. First, the grant to Qin Hui is dated to the first month of the twenty-third year of Shaoxing, supplying a month where the gazetteer gives only the year. Second, the polder was formed by enclosing a lake in the fifth year of Zhenghe, 1115. Third, before the grant to Qin Hui the polder had been granted to Cai Jing and Han Shizhong, and was afterwards assigned to the imperial household and then to the general accounting office: a piece of state land whose holding changed repeatedly. Since the compilations call it a polder of Jiankang, and Lishui was a county of Jiankang Prefecture, the gazetteer's own note that the affair "does not speak of Lishui in particular" has a basis: the affair was a measure of polder land at the prefectural level, and Lishui was drawn in because a polder of the name lay within the county.

Consequences

The Yongfeng Polder passed to Qin Hui and reverted to the state after his death. The gazetteer gives no acreage and no boundaries. The compilations, in the words of officials under 1165, the first year of Qiandao, give the polder as "730 qing of land under management, with a rent of more than 211,000 cheng", but this is the figure of the general accounting office after Qin Hui's death and the polder's return to the state, not the acreage of the grant to Qin Hui, and this entry cites it only for comparison. The same note in the gazetteer says that the grant to the commandant's office in 1165 was included on the same ground.

Uncertainties

First, the compiler's note says explicitly that the affair is recorded in the commandery and prefectural gazetteers without being tied to Lishui, and that the ground for inclusion was simply that Lishui had a polder of that name. It does not establish that the polder in those gazetteers is the one in Lishui. The compilations call it a polder of Jiankang, and Lishui was a county of Jiankang Prefecture, so the two may be read together; but whether the polder's boundaries fell within Lishui county is not supported by any source in this library, and the confidence level is therefore set to medium.

Second, neither the gazetteer nor the compilations give an acreage or boundaries for the grant to Qin Hui; the figure of 730 qing in the Song Huiyao Jigao is the general accounting office's later figure and is cited here only for comparison.

Third, the sequence of grants given by Han Yuanji — Cai Jing, then Han Shizhong, then Qin Hui — is the retrospect of a Southern Song official and carries no dates; this entry reproduces it without supplying years.