A Study Of Geographical Documents Cited In Xu Xiake's Travel Notes

Xu Xiake(1587-1641),a marvelous man of all ages,devoted his whole life to the study of the mountains and rivers of the motherland.His footprints covered 13 political secretaries in two capitals of the Ming Dynasty,covering a journey of more than 100,000 miles,and he left his diary style masterpiece of more than 600,000 words,Xu Xiake's Travel Notes.The academic circle has made a lot of achievements in the study of his travel notes and formed a Xu Xue system.After reading the full text of Xu Xiake's Travel Notes,the author finds that Xu Xiake had cited many geographical documents.It is a little pity that most scholars focus on the investigation of Xu Xiake's Travel Notes and the contribution of geographical scientific research.And the analysis of the philological value of the cited books in Xu Xiake's Travel Notes is not deep enough.Therefore,this paper uses the methodology of philology to examine the geography documents in Xu Xiake's Travel Notes one by one,so as to facilitate the academic research.This paper starts with the full text of Xu Xiake's Travel Notes,separates out all the quotations,clarifies the scope of the cited documents,and obtains 47 kinds of bibliographic documents,with a total of 203 times of citation.According to the traditional philology quartile and the classification principle of subject of writing,he indexed documents are divided into geographic documents and non-geographic documents,including 25 kinds of geographic documents,180 times of which are cited;22 kinds of non-geographic documents,23 times of which are cited.We find that there are many citations in Xu Xiake's Travel Notes,and it is mainly based on geography.Although the various parts of the collection of classics and history are involved,they are scattered and unsystematic.It is worth noting that the books listed in the Ministry of economy,such as Shangshu Yugong,is classified as geographical monographs because of their geographical monographs.The geographical documents cited in Xu Xiake's Travel Notes can be divided into three categories:General records of the whole country,local records of history and geography,and Monographs on geography.The general records include The Unified Records of The Ming Dynasty,The Records of The Nine Regions of Yuanfeng,The Records of Yudi,The Records of Western Affairs.The local records include Guangxi,Baiyue,Tengyue,Dali,Nancheng,Xundian,Guisheng,Guigu,Jinning,Yunnan,Duyun,Hengzhou,Lingjun,Tengyong.Wuzhou Official Records,Xinning Prefecture Records,Yaoguan Official Records,Yongchang Official Records and Jishan Official Records.The monographs include Shan Hai jing and Shangshu Yugong.It is the key point of this paper to study the content of geographic literature.This article distinguishes the academic chapter,examines the mirror origin explains the contents of each book author,catalog,process of writing,version circulation and so on.In addition,the citations of geographical documents are arranged one by one,and verify the citations with the original citations,or verify the circulation of the citations,or comment on the gains and losses of Xu Xiake's citations,or analyze the evaluation of Xu Xiake's citations by seniors.In the process of reviewing the citations,we can learn that there are two ways of quoting in Xu Xiake's Travel Notes:direct quoting and indirect quoting.Due to Xu Xiake's travel and poor living conditions,he is unable to carry a large number of books,so he mainly uses indirect quotations.The cited documents of Xu Xiake's Travel Notes involve various contents,including the construction history,mountains and rivers,public offices,local products,GuanLiang,temples,ancestral temples,historic sites,figures,and so on.Not only are there natural geographical phenomena,such as landform,hydrology,plants,climate,soil and minerals,but also human geographical phenomena,such as social profiles,national folk customs,and local customs,which are the true epitome of the social history of the late Ming Dynasty.There are many functions for Xu Xiake's Travel Notes to collect geographical documents.The most basic thing is to take a guided tour with clear understanding.In the process of visiting famous mountains and southwest reverie expedition,Xu Xiake had confirmed each other's field exploration and reading geographical maps and conducted in-depth geographical investigation.On the basis of making full use of the existing geographical documents,Xu Xiake had upheld the scientific spirit of seeking truth and pragmatism and corrected the mistakes in the geographical books without mercy.Through field exploration,Xu Xiake had put forward the correct conclusion that Jinsha River is the main source of the Yangtze River,and confirmed the wrong record of Minjiang River Guide in Yugong.In addition,Xu Xiake had also analyzed many wrong records of place names in local chronicles,and corrected some mistakes in such chronicles as The Unified Annals of The Ming Dynasty,The Records of Baiyue,The Records of Western Affairs.What's more admirable is that Xu Xiake had put forward his own ideas on the revision of Jishan Annals,which set an example for the later revision of Jishan annals.It is also of great cultural significance for Xu Xiake's Travel Notes to collect geographical documents.It is a diary style travel note.In the travel diary and print notes,Xu Xiake had attracted more than 200 geographical documents,which not only added science,but also promoted the transformation of Xu Xiake 's Travel Notes travel from a pure literary travel note to a rich geographical field investigation report,and completed the innovation of the travel notes genre.It is the evidence of the development and prosperity of the types of travel notes in Ming Dynasty.The introduction of many geographical documents expands and enriches the content of Xu Xiake's Travel Notes.Its error correction of historical records and local records also makes an indelible contribution to the further development of geographical documents in Ming Dynasty.At the same time,it is also the manifestation of Xu Xiake's detached and free personality and the scientific spirit of advocating truth.In the process of combing the documents Xu Xiake contacted during his travel,we can construct Xu Xiake's reading world,explore Xu Xiake's literature vision,enrich and extend the research content and system connotation of Xu Xue.