The large-scale reconstruct from Chai'tang (seawalls which built with firewoods) to Shi'tang (stone sewalls) in Zhejiang Province began with the fifth Southern Tour of the Qianlong Emperor. Qianlong hoped to achieve monumental feats through the Grand Canal engineering and seawall projects, so he ordered to wait for an opportunity to change the Chai'tang into Shi'tang, which need not rebuilt. He stressed that the Chai'tang should be used as the water tank and it need not paired annually as this practice violated the technical requirements of Shi'tang revetment project. Qianlong was well aware that if the indirect embankment protect works was still needed to be constructed and maintained for the new Shi'tang, it would undoubtedly show that his decision was wrong. When the courtiers talked about the need to build apron or repair the Chai'tang annually, which acted as an external protection for Shi'tang, his reaction was as follows: he repeatedly claimed that Chai'tang as an external protection for Shi'tang did not need to be repaired. He passed the blame for the decision-making mistakes on to the relevant courtiers, and vaguely or explicitly ordered the imperial commissioner to pass the responsibilities to local stakeholders. Even though the emperor tried his best to maintain that his decisions were correct, the objective technical requirements eventually convinced him to approve the special silver system of Chai'tang Annual Repairing, which also explained the initial decision was improper. The whole process shows that technology and environment often take a back seat to politics when it comes to the institutional issues of large public water projects in ancient times.The complexity of history is highlighted by the interweaving of institutional, technological, environmental and political factors.
In historical periods, Chinese emperors paid great attention to local precipitation and required local government to report precipitation to the central government regularly. This paper mainly uses the Xunhua (循化) archives to investigate the practice of Yuze (***) reporting system in counties in the late Qing Dynasty. There were reports every ten days and monthly ones. Both are required to record daily information including the weather condition, precipitation, begin-and-end time of rainfall. What's more, there was a special report to record rain in summer and snow in winter. It is an important guarantee to ensure the accuracy of Yuze (雨泽) reports to check the record format, time, clients and information of local government by sensior officials from prefectures, provinces, and ministries. In addition, the report from agrarian officials was also one of the sources of reports of rainfall and harvest.
In 1855, the Yellow River moved northward in the aftermath of the Tongwaxiang breach, which had a great impact on the topography of the downstream area and the environment of rivers and lakes. In the Shandong plain to the west of the Great Canal, the sediment deposition resulted in the elevation of the terrain, while the flood flow of the Yellow River in this area even disturbed the original water system. In the lower reaches of Wenhe River and Sishui River, it was difficult to drain water because of the high riverbed of the Yellow River. The formation and expansion of Dongping Lake was the result of the increasing water accumulation in the area. In the plain area on the west side of the hills from Changqing to Qidong in the middle of Shandong Province, affected by the silting up of riverbed of the Yellow River or the back-flow of its water, it was difficult to discharge water into the Yellow River, which directly prompt the opening of the New Qinghe River. In the basin of Tuhai River, affected by the breach of the Yellow River, many tributaries of the Tuhai River were silted, while the Tuhai River was scoured wide and deep by the Yellow River. After the breach of the Yellow River in Lijin in 1907, the tail reach of Tuhai River was also silted up.
It's generally accepted in academia that the various prefectural governments, were divided, top-down, into capital prefecture, general prefecture and the third class Sanfu (散府) in the Jin Dynasty. This paper holds that, from the point of view of administrative division, the above division blurs the difference between the general office of administrative organization and the general prefecture's capital town. It also conceals the fact that “Jingfu” (the Capital prefecture) in Jin Shi and other documents refers not only to the capital prefecture Lu (诸京路). Depending on the administrative status of the authorities they host, the various prefectural governments can be divided into the capital prefecture Lu's town, general prefecture Lu's town and non-general prefecture Lu or third rank Sanfu's town. There is no direct correlation between the aforementioned order and the upper, middle and lower tier system, which is mainly composed of demographic factors, and they are independent from each other. It is helpful in understanding the actual practice of the administrative divisions in the Yuan Dynasty and revealing the great turning point of the development of the Lu system during Jin and Yuan Dynasties.
Dengkou County, now under the jurisdiction of Bayan Nur City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is located in the west part of Hetao Plain and agro-pastoral ecotone in northwestern China. The area was the fiefdom of Alxa Lord in the Qing Dynasty. Due to the convenient conditions of irrigation and water transportation along the Yellow River, the Catholic Church established a Catholic society in Dengkou area by reclaiming land, constructing irrigation canals, and attracting the poor farmers of the Han population in Shaanxi and Gansu since the late Qing Dynasty. During the period of the Republic of China, along with the gradual increasing of Han immigrants in Dengkou area, Gansu Province and Ningxia Province separated from Gansu tried to continue the policy of “The Mongols are governed by Qi, while the Han are governed by counties”, which from Qing period and based on the principle of personal jurisdiction. At the same time, Gansu and Ningxia Province tried to extend the political power to Dengkou and establish the county administration. The political competition and the benefit struggle in Dengkou area reflected the frontier policy of the central government during the Republic of China, and also reflected the influence on the administrative divisions of different groups and various forces in frontier areas.
This paper clarifies the location changes of several different E's at Xiangning, Qinyang, Suizhou and Nanyang and their relationship between each other based on archaeological material and previous scholarship. The earliest E State was established at modern Suizhou by the court of the Western Zhou in order to control the nearby Huai and Jing Barbarians. During king Yi's reign, it was moved to the West E located in modern Xindian township of Nanyang city, marking the shrinking of the southern defensive line. In the early Spring and Autumn Period, the West E State was extincted and the Nanyang Basin was incorporated into the Chu State. Around the mid-Warring States Period, this place became the fief of the Lord of E. It was not until the War at Chuisha that the Lord of E moved eastward to the capital city of Daye, which was the beginning of the East E. In the Qin and early Western Han Dynasty, the central court established E County at the place of former East E, and later established another county in the Nanyang Basin, the West E, so as to distinguish from the East E. As for E being Hubei's abbreviation, it was not directly related to the E State in Western Zhou or the West E in the Nanyang Basin, but rather to the provincial capital. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Jiangxia (in modern Wuchang of Wuhan) was an important transportation hub. Since Wuchang was also named as E, the later eventually became the abbreviation of modern Hubei Province.
There have been three different viewpoints on the ancient fortress site of Haiyan County from Qin Dynasty to the early Western Han Dynasty: the north foot of Dajinshan, Qijiadun, and Dianshan. While each of them is reasonable in its own right, they are not correct and true in all details. The archaeological excavations of Zhashan ancient cultural site in 1973, 2008, 2017 (Block N) and 2018 (Block L) provide us with new clues and ideas, that is, the fortress site of Haiyan County during the said period maybe located on the east side of Zhashan. This paper takes the story of Gongbeimen stone tablet, which was popular in the Jinshanwei region, as the point of departure, and makes full use of the remains collected from the surface of the area, the existing archaeological work reports, the multidisciplinary data or research results of historical philology and meteorological geology as well to test the new hypothesis. It is hoped that this discussion will benefit future site exploration and accurate positioning of the Haiyan fortress.
After reading the Manchu and Chinese records in Beijing and Taibei's archives, the article firstly discovers that the Qing army used the Narin Road to relocate the Ili troops to Kashgar and patrolled on the Burut's border in three stages from the end of the eighteenth century to the 1830s, to achieve the dual effect of incorporating borderland inspection into the rotation of troops. Secondly, the article discusses the origin of the use of this road, the rotation process and its evolution, the reason of deserting the road, and the final influences and so forth. Lastly, the article argues that the map with the description “from Ili to Kashgar by Narin meadow road” is an attachment with annotation of the Ili General Deyingga's memorial to the emperor on September fourteenth of the seventh year of Daoguang.
As the Cipei (literally, prick and expel) punishment was abused in judicatory practice of Song Dynasty, the number of fugitives convicted for expulsion increased significantly. Accordingly, the Song court transferred and dispersed the convicts from the capital and its environs to remote regions in the south. However, by the turn of the Southern Song, the exiled criminals gradually assembled in the Five Ridges, where they joined the forces of Yankou (salt bandits) and Dongkou (minority bandits), resulting in a chronic threat to the stability in the region and its surrounding areas.
Abstract: In the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, Caodong school as one of the Zen began to revive. Furong Daokai (芙蓉道楷) was a monk of importance in Caodong School (曹洞宗) during Northern Song Dynasty. This essay, based on the inscription of Daokai and relevant materials, restores Daokai's history of life and the basic process of his preaching Buddism. The region from Suizhou(随州) up north to the surroundings of Dongjing (东京) became a significant area for Daokai and his dharma heirs. Owing to Daokai's influence, his followers took up the positions of numerous famous monasteries and mountains, which was a turning point in the trend of Caodong School. Although Daokai was demoted when in Dongjing, this was due to his personal clash with Tan Zhen. Because of the relationship between Daokai and monks and laymen in Dongjing, Daokai's relegation exerted no negative influence on the promotion of Caodong School in Dongjing immediately. But in the long run, the monks from Dahongshang were no longer appointed abbots of the monasteries in Dongjing. The Caodong school lost the Dongjing as their preaching area, and turned to preach in south of the Yangtze River.
