A Research On Yu Gong Studies In Ming Dynasty

Yu Gong is the earliest geographic genre in Chinese history.As an important chapter of Shang Shu,it has been noted in every commentary book written by famous scholars since Han dynasty,such as Ma Rong,Zheng Xuan,Kong Yingda ect.During Song dynasty,represented by Cheng Dachang's Yu Gong Shan Chuan Di Li Tu,it appeared the works that note Yu Gong independently,which turned the focus of this aspect from annotations and comments on the classical texts to the study of geography.In Qing dynasty,the academic research of Yu Gong reached its highest level on no matter quantity,quality or types.During that period,Hu Wei created his masterpiece Yu Gong Zhui Zhi and epitomized nearly all the achievements so far.Yu Gong study in Ming dynasty was between them,stood on an important position where inherited the past and opened the behind.However,today's focus degree of that is far more than enough.This thesis will take a comprehensive research on this field.This thesis will be mainly divided into five parts to inspect the academic research of Yu Gong in Ming dynasty.The first part is the introductions and comments of works related to Yu Gong in Ming dynasty.We present and evaluate nearly all the survived Yu Gong masterpiece in Ming dynasty edition by edition.During the research,we find out there exists plenty of copying or forgery making between different books or some of their editions.For instance,most of sentences in Zheng Xiao's Yu Gong Shuo are edited from Han Bangqi's Yu Gong Xiang Lue,the contents in so-called Yuan Huang's Yu Gong Tu Shuo are completely same with Zheng Xiao's work.And some editions in middle or later Qing dynasty of Zheng Xiao and Xia Yunyi's works are too simple that are quite different with their Ming editions.Thus,we suppose they are spurious works produced by later people.Meanwhile,in order to understand the Yu Gong works more systematically,we choose some of articles related to Yu Gong in the commentary books of Shang Shu that included or just recorded its title in Si Ku Catalog,the geography masterpieces,encyclopedia,miscellaneous notes and literature collections in Ming dynasty to take comments.The second part is the analyzation of the scripture annotations.We choose nine controversial topics in Yu Gong,such as Jiuhe(the nine rivers in northern China).Sanjiang(the three rivers in southern China),Heishui(the black river)and so on.Combining the conclusions made by Song and Qing scholars and modern historical geography research,we find that most of books were just written by expressing the scripture generally,and most of their opinions originated from that in Song dynasty,especially Cai Chen's Shu Ji Zhuan.It was the lacking innovation and textual research led Ming scholars make plenty of mistakes in their books.Besides the specialized annotations works of Yu Gong,there exited a few articles in literature collections presented some novel opinions,like Discussion of Heshuii written by Li Yuanyang,Expression of the Sanjiang Map written by Gui Youguang ect.However,still few later scholars thought highly of those discussions.All of these show that the quality of annotations in Ming dynasty was on a generally low level.The third part is a conclusion of characteristics of academic research of Yu Gong in Ming dynasty.We use the compliance with the expressions in Cai Chen's Shu Ji Zhuan and the appearance of numerous verses that help people to recite Yu Gong to prove Yu Gong study in Ming dynasty developed with a strong purpose of severing the ones who will take the Imperial Examination.We also take the discussions on economic developments and military problems in the vicinities of the capital and the areas south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River as examples to conclude there existed a kind of practical application tendency when noting Yu Gong in later Ming.In the same time,Yu Gong maps in Ming dynasty developed in the aspect of quantity,mapping standards and mapping skills.But the ignorance of using scale and legend made them are still not better than other maps in their current period or Yu Gong maps in later generations.The forth part concludes the influence of Yu Gong study in Ming dynasty and the evaluations in later generations.It points out Yu Gong study in Ming dynasty influence widely,especially in annotations of Shang Shu and geography literatures.And its influence mainly concentrated in the early years of the Qing Dynasty.The stylistic rules and contents of Mao Ruizheng's Yu Gong Hui Shu were followed by Zhu Heling's Yu Gong Chang Jian in the nearly same way.And the opinions of Ming scholars were always discussed in the works written by Yan Ruoqu and Hu Wei ect.As for Ming People's original scripture annotations,later scholars just provided a few positive evaluations.The fifth part is conclusion.Mainly based on the research conclusions of the above parts,we carry out a comprehensive summary of the Yu Gong study in Ming dynasty and make an objective evaluation of its role of inheriting the past and opening the behind in the whole history of academic research of Yu Gong.