Li Daoyuan, the author of Notes on Water Classics, was born in Fanyang (now Zhuoxian County, Hebei Province) in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Both Northern History and Shu Wei have been circulated. Born in Heping six years (AD 465) or Yanxing two years (AD 472) of the Northern Wei Dynasty, he died in Xiaochang three years (AD 527) at the age of 62 or 56 (see Zhao Zhenxin's "Examination of the Birth and Death Years of Li Daoyuan", published in Gong Yu Semimonthly, Volume 7, April/937,No./kloc-. Li Daoyuan was born in an official family. When I was a teenager, I traveled to Shandong with my father and read a lot of books. I was very interested in "visiting blasphemies to find canals". He wrote all kinds of works, and only one book, Notes on Water Classics, exists.
Notes on Water Mirror was written in Yanchang and Zheng Guang in the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 5 12-525), which is an annotated version of the book Water Mirror. "Water Mirror" is a geography book specializing in rivers and waterways. The author is Sang Qin. Sang Qin was a scholar of ancient Chinese classics in the late Western Han Dynasty. He made an in-depth study of Gong Yu, a famous piece of Shangshu. His income has been quoted many times in Hanshu Geography and Shuowen Jiezi, but there is no water mirror in Hanshu Wenyizhi collected by Luo Hongfu. Sui Shu Jing Ji Zhi begins with "Three volumes of water mirrors, with Guo Pu's note", and The Book of the New Tang Dynasty Yi Wenzhi simply says that the water mirrors were written by Guo Pu. However, when Li Daoyuan wrote the Notes on Water Classics, he only quoted Guo Pu's Notes on Mountains and Seas and never mentioned Guo Pu's Notes on Water Classics. According to the research of scholars in Qing Dynasty, the author of Water Mirror was from the Three Kingdoms period. In order to highlight his book, he took the pen name Sangqin.
The water mirror described 37 rivers and waterways in China/KLOC-0 with more than 10,000 words. It is divided into three volumes, which are very brief. Li Daoyuan's note describes 1252 waterways, with more than 300,000 words and 40 volumes. The geographical scope of the account has been expanded, the accuracy has been improved, and the content has become more detailed and rich. Far beyond the original work in scale, it is actually a masterpiece in China's ancient geography works.
The characteristic of the compilation of pear and bamboo content is that "the land is proved by water, that is, the land is handed down from generation to generation" (see the preface of Wang Xianqian United School). That is to say, it does not simply describe the watershed of the waterway like a water mirror, but takes the waterway as the key link to describe land products, urban evolution, the rise and fall of settlements, folk customs, mountains and rivers, traffic arteries, hydrology and climate, soil vegetation, shape and so on. It is a comprehensive historical and geographical masterpiece with rich content and clear outline.
Li Zhu's writing style is beautiful, simple, vivid and concrete, and almost every note can be called an excellent prose, among which Three Gorges, which was selected as the current Chinese textbook for middle schools, is one of the famous works. Therefore, Zhu also occupies an important position in the history of China's prose development, and has a positive impact on later prose. Li Zhu's literary achievements are inseparable from his thoughts and feelings of loving the great rivers and mountains of the motherland. Li Daoyuan personally visited places of interest and collected folk songs, proverbs, dialects and legends, which gave him rich on-the-spot feelings. It is precisely because of this kind of thoughts, feelings and practical activities that in his works, the scenery and scenes are intertwined, the objects are lifelike, and the narrative makes people feel immersive.
Li Daoyuan not only attaches importance to field trips, but also attaches importance to the use of ancient books. Annotations from geographical situation to historical facts and legends are all called circumstantial evidence, with 437 kinds of books cited, and many inscriptions between Han and Wei Dynasties. Most of these ancient books and inscriptions have been lost, and Zhu's contribution to the preservation of documents and cultural relics cannot be underestimated.
As a work on ethnic geography, it also reflects Li Daoyuan's views on the territory of China. Although Li Daoyuan grew up in the Northern Wei Dynasty, which coincided with the confrontation between the Northern and Southern Dynasties, he ruled out the influence of the separatist political situation and still took the unified territory of the Han Dynasty as the object of description and China as a unified whole. Compared with the situation that historians at that time took their own region as the object, so that there was no history of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Li Daoyuan's view of great unity is commendable, and this foresight is a reflection of the concept of national unity formed by our Chinese nation in the long-term development process.
To sum up, the achievements and value of water mirror annotation far exceed the original work of water mirror. In the ancient academic history of our country, the value of annotations exceeded the original work in an all-round way. Except for the annotations of water mirrors, I am afraid it is difficult to find a second case.
Of course, it is no accident that Shui Jing Zhu came into being. Besides many conditions of Li Daoyuan itself, there are more important social and historical conditions. Since Wei and Jin Dynasties, despite frequent wars, division has replaced unity, but the economy of the north and south regions has been restored and developed in the gap between wars. During the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties, the working people strengthened the development of the south, especially in the areas of Jing, Yang, Yi and Guang. The north was severely damaged by the war, but after the Northern Wei Dynasty unified the vast northern region, the economy recovered, especially after Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty sinicized, moved the capital to Luoyang, and implemented the land equalization system. The split did not cut off the economic exchanges between North and South. The foreign trade between north and south is also more than that of the previous generation. Panyu and Guangling in the south have become important foreign trade ports, while Siyiguan and Yihe Stone in Li Si in the northern southern suburbs of Luoyang have also become important foreign trade ports. "Businessmen and businessmen are very busy every day" (Galand in Luoyang, Volume III Longhua Temple). With the arrival of foreign caravans, Indian and Central Asian Buddhist monks also came to China by land and sea to spread Buddhist culture. Foreign businessmen and monks also brought exotic customs and geographical knowledge to China, thus broadening people's horizons. With the development of economy, culture and transportation, geographical works came into being.
The Records of Han Shu Literature and Art only recorded several unsystematic geography books such as Shan Hai Jing, and there was no separate classification, only an appendix was added to the Summary of Shu Shu. The Records of Sui Shu's Classics and Records lists a geographical category in the history department, recording 139 species and 1433 volumes, which is a magnificent sight. Thus, before Notes on Water Mirror, there were Jin Zhiyu's Ji Fu Jing 170 volumes and Qi Lucheng's Geography Book Collection 160 volumes. These outstanding figures provided examples and materials as Li Daoyuan. Li's note was made in English, but it is higher than the previous one, so it can be passed down to future generations.
Like many ancient academic masterpieces, Zhu also has some shortcomings. Due to the split between the north and the south at that time, Li Daoyuan has never been to the south of Jianghuai personally, and at the same time, he has never been to the Great Wall. Therefore, there are inevitably some misunderstandings in the description of these areas. In addition, there are also improper editing and rewriting of Li's notes and quotations. As for the mistakes caused by long-term copying, there are so many mistakes that they are confused with notes. Fortunately, after textual research and collation by dozens of scholars since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, these deficiencies have been largely compensated. Scholars Quan and Zhao Yiqing in Qing Dynasty included classics and annotations in 40 volumes of Shui Jing Zhu respectively. Dai Zhen made a detailed study of water land, and wrote 40 volumes of Notes on School Water Classics, whose research results surpassed those of predecessors. Wang Xianqian has studied the theory for 30 years, and wrote 40 volumes of Notes on Water Classics, which is even more advanced. Yang Shoujing, a beginner in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, and his student Xiong spent more than 20 years writing 80 volumes of Notes on Water Classics. All the books cited in Li Zhu are published, and the water described in it is detailed and concentrated on the essence of the compilation of Shui Jing Zhu.