Hanshu Shadow of Geography
1. The Official Geography of China was founded by Hanshu, which began in Bangu's Hanshu. It is one of the ten chronicles of Hanshu and is divided into two volumes.
Hanshu? Geographical Records is the earliest geographical work named after "geography" in the official history of our country. Fifteen official histories after China have used Geographical Records, but some official histories are not all named after "geography", such as the Book of the Later Han Dynasty and the Book of the Song Dynasty. County annals, Nanqishu county annals, Wei Shu? Topography, the history of the old Five Dynasties? County annals, etc. , but its content is the same as geography.
Another development of the History of Han Geography is a detailed introduction to the geography of ancient territories and administrative regions. Previous geographical works, such as Mu Zhuan, Li Zhouzhi Fang, Shangshu, etc. , talk about mountains and rivers, pay little attention to the territory, administrative evolution, economic and population situation, and lack a unified and rigorous style. However, geography in Han Dynasty broke this tradition.
Bangu town
Second, the content of "Geography of Hanshu" From the content, the book of "Geography of Hanshu" is divided into three parts. At the beginning of the article, "History of Han Geography" quoted the territory changes of Gong Yu, Zhifang and other places since the Yellow Emperor.
Giant flood of shad
From the second part, Geography of Hanshu lists the evolution of counties 103, countries and countries 1587, which occupied the main space of geography. In addition to the value of this general table itself, many small notes under place names also have their own characteristics.
For example, the introduction of famous mountains and ancestral halls has the function of explaining the location. If you bet on Xinfeng, "Li Mountain is in the south, so Li Rong country". Huayin (near Weinan today) bet that "Taihua Mountain is in the south, with temples and Yuzhou Mountain". Another example is Shangdang (near Changzhi today), where there are Shangdang Pass, Hukou Pass and Tianjing Pass, which are used to learn ancient times, sounds and shapes.
Today's scenery of Mount Li
Another example is the record of river water source. The river flows through several counties and miles, which shows that the historical materials of the Han Dynasty have been greatly improved compared with the previous generation. For example, "Jincheng County (now Lanzhou) enters the customs" said: "Jishi Mountain is in the southwest Qiang, the river (referring to the Yellow River) goes out of the Great Wall, the northeast enters the Great Wall, and passes through the county for sixteen miles." (refers to Han Li, 1, which is now 415.8m). The article describes in detail the flow direction, the number of counties and the mileage of the Yellow River in Lanzhou today. There are many similar records in Hanshu Geography, which greatly enriched people's understanding of the development and changes of the national economy in the Han Dynasty.
The third part of Hanshu Geography is in Historical Records? On the basis of Biography of Huo Zhi, Liu Xiang's Domain and Zhu Gan's Customs are included, and the whole country is divided into five geographical regions: Qin, Wei, Zhou, Han, Yue (the same as Guangdong) 15, and the evolution, territory, cities, products and customs of each region are described and discussed. For example, the introduction of Bashu area: "Bashu Guanghan was born in the south, and Qin is a county with fertile land and fertile rivers." This shows that the ancients had the consciousness of regional geography and the relationship between man and land in the early days.
Bashu Minjiang River today
Third, the influence of geography in Hanshu The geography founded by Ban Gu has been further developed and improved on the basis of the previous History of Yugong and Li Zhouzhifang, and its content is more accurate and systematic than the geography works and articles in the pre-Qin period. And it has the characteristics of strong geographical division.
Its content introduces the rivers, administrative regions, territories, products, customs, population and other contents of the Western Han Dynasty in detail, which is not available in ancient geographical documents. Geography in Han Dynasty had a great influence on the development of geography in China. This way of writing local chronicles has influenced the compilation of geographical records, national general records and local chronicles in the official history of later generations.
The writing background of Geography of Hanshu was completed in the form of national unity. On the basis of stable political and economic environment, Ban Gu made good use of the literature and historical materials left in the world at that time.
Stills of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty
Because the geographical records of territorial administrative regions compiled in past dynasties are the most basic and important part of China's ancient geographical writings, with traditional characteristics.