Born to his concubine Zhou. After Zhou became pregnant, she "remarried to Li" because she "couldn't bear to be married to Li", so she was named Li Jieli, also known as Li Ji. "An important factor for the preservation and dissemination of ".
During the political turmoil between the Ming and Qing dynasties, the first manuscript of "Travel Notes" compiled by Ji Mengliang was reduced to ashes in the flames of war. After that, Ji Mengliang collected materials again and compiled a manuscript. Later, Xu Zhongzhao, Xu Xiake's like-minded clan brother, gave the manuscript to Qian Qianyi, a famous scholar in Changshu, in order to make "Travel Notes" a book and seal as soon as possible.
Qian Qianyi, a Jinshi in Wanli of the Ming Dynasty, was an official and served in the Ministry of Civil Affairs. He wrote "The Collection of Chuxue" and "The Collection of Youxue" and compiled "Selected Poems of the Dynasties". famous scholar. He was also a great bibliophile. He spent a lot of money to buy ancient books and built the Jiangyun Tower in Hongdou Villa with a collection of 10,000 volumes. Qian Qianyi had interacted with Xu Xiake, and he knew very well that "Travel Notes" was Xiake's life-long investigation record of "climbing the stars and mountains with his hands and creeping into the wilderness with his feet". It was "a true, great, and wonderful text in the world that should not be destroyed and not passed down." . Unfortunately, Qian Qianyi, who is now an octogenarian, is living in a difficult situation, especially since his Wanjuan Building has just been destroyed by fire. No matter how good the "Travel Notes" are, he cannot collect them unconditionally, let alone engrave them. For this reason, he had no choice but to turn to Mao Zijin, a well-known publisher in the country at that time, and wrote "A Book of Travel Notes" and handed it to Mao Zijin together with the manuscript.
Mao Zijin is also from Changshu. He was fond of ancient books and had a collection of more than 80,000 volumes. He specially built Jiguge Pavilion and Mugeng Building for storage. He also hired scribes to collate and print "Thirteen Classics", "Seventeen Histories", "Hundred Schools of Ancient and Modern Studies" and unprinted books. Of course, "Travel Notes" should be a manuscript that Mao Zijin welcomed, but for unknown reasons he was unable to print it into a book, but gave it to Dushan Mo Shengsun. Mo was also a bibliophile who searched for rare copies. He kept "Travel Notes" in his Yingshan Thatched Cottage for a long time, but he was never able to engrave it. Later, the manuscript of "Travel Notes" was transferred to the Xijiayetang Library in Nanxun Town, Huzhou, Zhejiang. This was obtained accidentally when the poster, Liu Chengqian, purchased ancient books from more than a dozen bibliophiles in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places in order to expand his book collection. When Liu saw the manuscript, he regarded it as a rare book and kept it in a library by the Partridge River. After the founding of New China, Liu Chengqian donated the library to the country, and the manuscript of "Travel Notes" was also transferred to the Beijing Library. It was not until the 1970s that a group of "Xu Studies" researchers reorganized and published "Xu Xiake's Travels" and discovered this manuscript of "Xu Xiake's Travels" that traveled all over the country, lasted for more than 300 years, and changed its owners several times in the Rare Books and Special Collections Department. This cannot but be said to be the work of private book collectors.
While "Travel Notes" has been preserved and copied for a long time by bibliophiles, a lot of work has been done in editing, supplementing, printing and publishing. Today there are still two manuscripts of "Travel Notes" treasured in the Rare Books and Special Collections Department of the Beijing Library. They are the manuscripts that have been verified and enriched by bibliophiles. The first part is the manuscript of "Travel Notes" transcribed and compiled by Yang Mingshi, a native of Jiangyin. Yang was a Jinshi of Kangxi, served as governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, and served as Minister of the Ministry of Personnel. He also wrote books and established theory, and once compiled "Zhezhong of Zhouyi", "Xingliqingyi", etc. During the Qianlong period, he was appointed as a professor to the prince, and he was a great scholar. In the forty-eighth year of Kangxi's reign (1707), he obtained the manuscript of "Travel Notes" from his uncle, copied one with his own hands, and wrote the "Preface". However, he got another manuscript collected by Zhao Jifang of Wen Lu Tang, Cai Naihuang of Panyu, Guangdong, and Guangdong Academy of Capital. The next year, Yang Mingshi collated and revised the manuscript based on the original "Travel Notes" collected by friends in Jiangyin. After "refining the similarities and differences, examining the deficiencies", and correcting the fallacies or "inconsistencies with the actual situation or the meaning of the text" in the transcript, he copied the book again and wrote the "Preface" again. ". In the forty-first year of Qianlong's reign (1776), Xu Xiake's grandson Xu Zhen officially printed the woodcut version of "Travel Notes", which was based on Yang Ming's manuscript. Therefore, "Travel Notes" edited by Yang is the earliest manuscript that has been handed down with complete and correct content and high academic value.