Gu Zuyu's main works

Gu Zuyu spent more than 30 years before and after writing "Reading History and Geography". It can be said that he devoted his whole life to this book. He suffered from national subjugation, but he always insisted on his ambition, not seeking fame and benefiting the world. Living in a "poor and sad" environment for a long time, worrying about your own words is really commendable. His purpose is very clear, that is, to preserve the documents of the old country, so as to make contributions to the great cause of anti-Qing and regaining sight in the future. His best friend, Wei, the capital of Ningdu, Jiangxi, knows him very well and thinks that he is "far-sighted, deeply hidden outside the written language". When he began to write a summary, there were poems such as "Hungry grass always spreads through the autumn window, and there are cries in the faint empty mountain" and "The bottom of the river is poor and heavy, and the palm of his hand is happy to touch the golden gull", which shows that he wrote this book with infinite sadness. Summary is a monograph on historical geography, describing the evolution of geography and the situation of war. It is not only a must-read book for historical geography researchers, but also an indispensable history book for historical researchers. Because of its writing style, it is easy to look up and can also be used as a reference book for historical geography. Book 130 volume, appendix "Introduction to Maps" has four volumes, with more than 2.8 million words. According to the administrative divisions in the late Ming Dynasty, it can be roughly divided into four parts:

The first part, "Countries in Past Dynasties", arranged in historical order, records the political division and evolution of Tang Yu, Spring and Autumn and Warring States, Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming, so that "scholars can play and divide the country."

In the second part, there are 1 14 provincial chronicles in the thirteen provinces of North and South Zhili, which record the positions and reasons of states, counties, mountains, Sichuan, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Huguang, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou. Each provincial capital has an overview to discuss the most important points in its history, so as to make the situation of the whole province clear. The discussion of each volume comes from the self-annotation of the Outline. Every government also imitates this example, and the theory is more detailed. Each county has jurisdiction over major mountains and rivers, passes, bridges, post stations and towns. For example, Miyun County in Zhili (now Beijing) not only lists Miyun Mountain, Baitan Mountain, Wuling Mountain, Kyubi no Youko Mountain, Baihe River, Chaohe River and Yaoshui, but also records the abandoned counties such as Baitan, Yaoyang, Xixi, Anshi, Le Yan and Xingtang in history, Yuyang City, Gubeikou and Shitang Lingguan. He also made a small note under each place name, such as the small note cloud in "Abandoned County in Tang Dynasty": "In the east of the county, Dingzhou belongs to the county today. Liao Zhi and Taizu Baoji plundered Dingzhou, broke the Tang Dynasty and drove its people to Tanzhou in the north, choosing to live in the wilderness. All ten villages are still called Xingtang County. Gold scrap. " Another example is "Yuyang City", which notes: "Kong Yun is eighteen miles south of the county, which is under the jurisdiction of Qin County. The second generation sent the left hand to guard Yuyang, which is the city. " (Volume XI, Zhonghua Book Company, Volume 5 1 1-5 17)

The third part, "Chuandu" six volumes, collects the records of mountains and rivers in geography books of past dynasties, "showing the context of Kyushu by the similarities and differences of Chuandu".

The fourth part, the division of astronomy, lists the theories about the division of stars in different places in historical books.

The appendix "Sketch" consists of four volumes, with charts of provinces, frontiers and even oceans in the capital, "to show the context of the book".

"Summary" can discuss the situation of the capital, the dangers of mountains and rivers, the deeds of fighting and defense, and the water conservancy of rivers and canals in detail. , both textual research, and convenient to use. His writing style is also quite novel. For example, national-level articles of past dynasties take dynasties as classics and geography as latitudes. The situation in Beijing province takes geography as the longitude, dynasties as the latitude, longitude and latitude hold each other, and they are used vertically and horizontally.

The greatest feature of Summary is its strong military geographical characteristics, and the idea of practical application runs through it. Like his father, he was gentle and modest, and he was saddened by the fact that the rulers of the Ming Dynasty would not take advantage of the danger of mountains and rivers and would not learn the lessons of success or failure in using troops in ancient and modern times. Therefore, this book gives the most detailed account of the dangers of mountains and rivers, the appropriateness of using troops in ancient and modern times, the success or failure of war prevention, and the success or failure of scenic tours, and makes contributions to the great cause of anti-Qing and restoring Ming Dynasty in the future. Because of this, Zhang Zhidong listed him as a strategist in the bibliography question and answer; Liang Qichao also thinks that this book is "an original military geography" and "its original intention is to be used for national rejuvenation" (Academic History of China in the Past 300 Years, the first edition of Chongqing Reorganization by Zhonghua Book Company1943,318).

Another feature of the Summary is that it includes not only the evolution of territory and administrative areas in past dynasties, but also physical geography (such as the changes of canals) and economic geography (such as the changes of grain, reclamation and horse administration). He studied the economy of past dynasties and wrote papers, but unfortunately they were all lost. Fortunately, "the main idea is only wrong in the article" ("summary. Ordinary cases "). Although he didn't specialize in studying the changes of economic geography, he still provided a lot of information for us to study economic geography, such as the changes of transportation, the rise and fall of cities, the increase and decrease of grain transportation, and the transfer of economic centers. A brief overview of the characteristics of agricultural production in various provinces and regions in the book enables us to understand the general situation of agricultural development in these areas in history. For example, when he talked about Sichuan Province, he said: "It is said that Sichuan is rich in soil and rich in people, and the goods are overflowing. From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Southern Song Dynasty, taxation was the highest in the world. " (Sichuan I, Volume III, 66, Page 2853) As for the change of rivers and lakes, it has a direct impact on all aspects of the local economy and is closely related to people's lives. The book not only discusses this point in various provinces and regions, but also uses a chapter to describe several important rivers and poverty sources. For example, he used two volumes (Sichuan Reading, Volume 125, Volume 126) to focus on the Yellow River. The origin, flow direction, changes and river disasters of rivers are described in detail. He mercilessly rebuked the Ming rulers for their wrong ways of managing rivers passively and actively protecting the well-being, and only wanted to transport grain from the south to the north, regardless of the lives of people on both sides of the lower Yellow River.

The third feature of the Summary is the author's rigorous attitude and meticulous textual research, which corrected some major mistakes of predecessors. For example, the Kunming Pool in the southwest of Chang 'an in Han Dynasty was originally excavated according to the shape of Erhai Lake in Kunming (now Dali, Yunnan), but scholars were confused 1300 years because the minister of Jin Dynasty praised Dianchi Lake in Kunming as Erhai Lake in Hanshu, and it was not until Gu Zuyu corrected this mistake in minutes that the relationship between Kunming Pool in Chang 'an and Kunming in Han Dynasty was clarified (100 volume

It can be seen that the Summary is indeed a historical geography work with rich materials, detailed textual research and rigorous structure, which surpasses the previous historical geography works such as Yuanhe County Records, Taiping Global Records, Ji Sheng of Geography and Yu Fang Sheng Lan. Later, with the help of the government, after the compilation of the Annals of the Unification of the Qing Dynasty was completed, the abstract was not abolished, but was valued and proved by scholars. Until today, it is still an important reference book for historical geography researchers.

There are also some historical facts and geographical errors in the Summary, which have been discovered by predecessors and neighbors. In the process of copying and engraving, there are many clerical errors and typos in the book. However, compared with its contribution, it is insignificant.

In the fifth year of Kangxi (1666), when Gu Zuyu was thirty-six, the abstract was carved by Wuxi Huajia, with only five volumes. The whole book was printed and published by Longwanyu Wenfu Museum in Sichuan in 1 19 years after Zuyu's death and in the 16th year of Jiaqing (181/year). Since then, there have been movable-type books in Shanghai in the third year of Daoguang (1823), the ninth year of Guangxu (1883) and the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu (1899), as well as the printed books of Sanwei Library in the same year. Universal Library in the Commercial Press 1937 is based on Long Benyin. 1955 Zhonghua Book Company reprinted six volumes according to the type of business base paper, which is quite convenient to read. Before reprinting, Zhonghua Book Company compared Zou Ben and found that "the two books are quite similar, and the last four volumes are particularly different, but Zou Ben generally carefully examines the relevant records and meanings." Zhonghua Book Company reprinted the book, "except for obvious mistakes in proofreading in Wan You Library, the rest are still the same." All the similarities and differences between Zou Ben and Zou Ben are listed, and two tables of similarities and differences with a length of 16 pages are attached at the end of the book for reference (Review of Yu Fang Minutes of Reading History, Chinese version, 6 volumes, 5709 pages).

The place names in Chinese are arranged in the order of province, prefecture, state and county. Readers can find the place names above the county level in the Ming Dynasty, although it is also convenient. However, because it contains more than 30,000 place names and is voluminous, it is difficult for readers to find ancient place names. In view of this, Akio Aoyama, a Japanese, edited the book Reading Historical Records and Minute Index: A Survey of Place Names in Zhina in Past Dynasties from 1930 to 1932 (published by Oriental Research Institute of Japan Oriental Culture Institute 1933), and noted the number of original books and the provinces and counties to which they belonged, referring to five historical geography published at that time. It's called an index, which is actually a dictionary of place names. It's very useful. However, the shortcomings of this index are: only the state situation and the place names of provinces are collected, but the place names of Chuandu and Yutu are not collected; People who are often mistaken for two places (for example, at the junction of Chong 'an County in Fujian and Lead Mountain County in Jiangxi, there is a fenshuiguan in the middle, but the indicators are mistaken for two places); Unfortunately, the index failed to correct the original mistakes in the abstract (for example, Nanping City, Fujian Province, Nanjian Road in Yuan Dynasty, the abstract was mistakenly named Nanjian Road, and the index was also mistakenly named Nanjian Road).