| Chapter 1: | Geographical Advancements in the Mid-Tang |
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of literati that materialized the inner connections between geography and literature and pushed the development of both to an unprecedented level in Chinese history.
The two people who set the advancement of geography in full swing from the 790s to the early 810s were the leading geographers Jia Dan and Li Jifu. The fact of their long-term central positions in the court as chief ministers and their outstanding expertise in geography bespeaks the general social significance of geography in mid-Tang, as well as the importance of geographic competence to a literati’s professional life. At court, both Jia Dan and Li Jifu acted as chief organizers of new geographic information acquired from across the empire and beyond imperial borders. Though they had once been occupied with work as regional governors or had suffered from political setbacks, once each was promoted to the position of chief minister, their centrality in the notoriously turbulent and even deadly contemporary political scene became relatively stable, making it possible for them to conduct extensive research with full institutional support. While at court, Jia Dan composed the iconic mid-Tang grand map, the “Map of Chinese and Foreign Lands.” For his part, Li Jifu compiled Maps and Treaties of the Provinces and Counties of the Yuanhe Reign, the earliest extant collection of local geography that covers the entire Chinese empire. Jia’s and Li’s emphasis on geography became a shared basic tenet among cultural elites and would be passed down to younger generations.
A decade later, Yuan Zhen’s emergence as an important mapmaker further demonstrates the vital role the literati played in the dynamic between political power and advanced geographic knowledge. In 821 Yuan, then a Hanlin scholar responsible for drafting documents for the emperor, submitted to Emperor Muzong several maps that he crafted with his distinguished cartographic and geographic knowledge. The maps tackled several difficult issues that the emperor and the court were facing. For instance, he presented two copies of his four-volume reader-friendly Map-Guide for Regions to the West and the North of the Capital