When it comes to Zhu, many people know it, but perhaps not so many people know about his author. Zhu is far more famous than his author Li Daoyuan. Li Daoyuan is from the Northern Dynasties. He was born into an official family, and his father Li Fan was a veteran of three dynasties. He himself has read many poems since he was a child, and he is very talented. Li Daoyuan's career was very bumpy. He was not only demoted many times, but also let go.
This is related to Li Daoyuan's character. Too honest character is not easy to mix in officialdom, and it is easy to offend people. However, although he didn't get along well in officialdom, he left a masterpiece "Zhu". In fact, as early as the Three Kingdoms period, there was a book about waterways called Water Mirror, but there were only over 10,000 words and only over 100 streams recorded, which was relatively simple.
Introduction to Zhu
Among the ancient geographers in China, one is called "the greatest geographer in the Middle Ages", and he is Li Daoyuan. Li Daoyuan is diligent and studious, and he has read wonderful books all over the north of China. On this basis, he wrote 40 volumes of Notes on Water Classics, which is a masterpiece of ancient geography in China. The study of Shui Jing Zhu has always been a specialized knowledge, and it is called "Sydney".
Li Daoyuan lived in the split era of the opposition between the northern and southern regimes, but the geographical scope recorded in Water Mirror Notes was not limited to the territory of the Northern Wei Dynasty. At that time, Li Daoyuan tried his best to describe the natural mountains and rivers and human geography under the rule of the Southern Dynasties, and treated them equally. In Notes on Water Classics, the division of regions is completely bounded by natural mountains and rivers. One mountain, one water, one grass, one tree, one city and one city are full of the author's enthusiasm and love.
In the first volume River, Li Daoyuan described in detail the hydrogeology and customs of Ganges, Indus and Bay of Bengal in southeast India in ancient times. In the south, the geographical scope of records has reached northern Vietnam, Cambodia and Malay Peninsula.
There are 1252 rivers recorded in Water Mirror Notes. For these rivers, Li Daoyuan exhausted their origins and traced their ancient and modern changes. One of the most famous is the change of the Yellow River.