| Chapter 1: | Geographical Advancements in the Mid-Tang |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
the “Five Zones of Submission,” on the other hand, designates the royal or imperial capital as the center of the world and divides the rest of the world into successive concentric zones in which the level of civilization declines as one moves further away from the capital.2 The nine-province structure establishes the fundamental paradigm for later geographic work. As Joseph Needham observes, “all Chinese geographers worked under its [the “Tribute of Yu”] aegis, drew the titles of their books from it, and tried unceasingly to reconstruct the topography which it contained.”3
“Tribute of Yu” is an emblematic example of the literary nature of classic Chinese geographic works. It unfolds in a narrative structure, following the movements of the ancient hero Yu along the rivers of China. The entire piece can be seen as a fictional record of how Yu travels across the realm to restore different rivers to their channels and subsequently to recreate China after the flooding.4 The opening line of the chapter, “Yu divided the land” (“Yu futu” 禹敷土), takes on the typical storytelling style that introduces the protagonist and his action at the beginning of a story.5 Moreover, although the descriptions of the mountains and rivers seemingly correspond to natural landmarks, in the actual topography of China many of them prove unidentifiable, or are not located where the text shows them. Some river channels are legendary places; others are purely imagined. In other words, part of what “Tribute of Yu” delineates is a fictional geography.6 Finally, the grid structure of the Nine Provinces is itself an abstract conceptualization of space that was later developed into a complicated philosophical world model composed of a series of grids by the philosopher Zou Yan (c. 250 B.C.).7
“Classic of Mountains” (Shanjing 山經), another iconic early geographic work that maps out the world along mountain ranges (rather than rivers), is structured as a journey from one mountain to the next. Moreover, the world depicted in “Classic of Mountains” is not human-centered, but rather is inhabited by all manner of monstrous creatures, strange plants, and divine beings. Because of these features, Mark Edward Lewis concludes that the world of the “Classic of Mountains” “is that of the