The purpose of this essay is to attempt to understand the historical \ncultural significance of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming dynasty \n(1368-1644) popular encyclopedias in terms other than \u201ceveryday \npracticality.\u201d I focus on the daily-use encyclopedias of this particular\n period because it was at this time \u2014 the late sixteenth and early \nseventeenth centuries \u2014 that these encyclopedias came to be produced and\n widely distributed in large numbers. This was also just the time that \nwestern world geographical knowledge was introduced to China, so we will\n be able to compare that knowledge with the treatment of foreign lands \nin the late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At present, the academic discourse surrounding the \u201cBarbarians\u201d \nsections of late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias has focused on the ways in\n which they mingle concrete geographical information with fantastic \nmythical tales. In general, these encyclopedias are comprised of two \nregisters of text and pictures, one on the bottom and one on the top of \nthe page. In the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections, the top register generally \npresents ancient mythical creatures described in the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>\n under the title \u201cStrange Creatures of the Mountains and Seas\u201d; the \nbottom register, under the title \u201cMiscellaneous Records of Foreign \nBarbarian\u201d describes foreign lands, including actual countries such as \nJapan, Goryeo [present day Korea], and Chenla [in present day Vietnam], \nin addition to imagined countries that exist only in the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>, like the Country of Dwarves, the Country of the One-Eyed, and the Country of Winged People.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wang Cheng-hua believes that these legendary creatures and fantastic \nmonsters from a wide range of places are expressions of the \u201ccuriosity\u201d \nof the people of the Ming dynasty.4<\/sup>\n Alternatively, Miura Kunio suggests that the mythical elements of the \n\u201cBarbarians\u201d sections represent a unique Ming worldview in which reality\n and imagination are combined.5<\/sup>\n Wu Huey-fang, however, holding that the mixture of reality and \nimagination in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of the encyclopedias was \nalready apparent in the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) daily-use encyclopedia Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs<\/em> (Shilin guangji<\/em> \u4e8b\u6797\u5ee3\u8a18), argues that it does not necessarily represent a mentality unique to the people of the Ming.6<\/sup>\n To be sure, as Wu points out, Wang and Miura have not considered the \n\u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias in the \ncontext of the longer history of encyclopedia production. However, Wu\u2019s \ncriticism itself requires further discussion. Firstly, Wu\u2019s \ninvestigation of the phenomenon of \u201cthe mixture of reality and \nimagination in \u2018Barbarians sections\u2019\u201d focuses mainly on daily-use \nencyclopedias, and does not discuss the earlier tradition of \nencyclopedias. Additionally, when criticizing the term \u201cthe uniqueness \nof the Ming people,\u201d Wu does not proceed further to differentiate the \nmixture of reality and imagination in Expansive Record<\/em> from \nthat of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias. \nOne purpose of this paper is to fill in the gaps in the approaches \ndescribed above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prior to addressing the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias, it is necessary to consider the relationship between the \nmythological and legendary countries in the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>,\n and \u201cbarbarians\u201d as a category of information. \u201cBarbarians\u201d was first \nfirmly established as a category of information in the biographies of \nbarbarians included in the orthodox dynastic histories.7<\/sup> In these biographies, we find no links between the Classic<\/em> and accounts of foreign peoples. Indeed, the very first dynastic history, the first century BCE Records of the Grand Historian<\/em> (Shiji<\/em>\n \u53f2\u8a18), expressed explicit reservations about the fanciful foreign peoples\n described in that text. For instance, the Grand Historian mentions that\n Zhang Qian and other envoys were sent to Daxia and, though successful \nin tracing the Yellow River to its source, failed to find the legendary \n800-mile-high Kunlun Mountain, stating clearly \u201cTherefore, what the Book of Documents<\/em>\n states about the mountains and rivers of the nine ancient provinces of \nChina seems to be nearer the truth, while I cannot accept the wonders \nrecorded in the Basic Annals of Emperor Yu<\/em> or the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>.\u201d8<\/sup> Later official historians concurred with this judgement.9<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, prior historical works have diverged in their categorization of this work. The History of the Han<\/em> classifies it as a work on geomancy; the History of the Sui Dynasty<\/em> (Sui shu<\/em> \u968b\u66f8), the Old History of the Tang Dynasty<\/em> (Jiu Tang shu<\/em> \u820a\u5510\u66f8), the New History of the Tang Dynasty (Xin Tang shu<\/em> \u65b0\u5510\u66f8),<\/em> and General Catalogues of the Academy for the Veneration of Literature<\/em> (Chongwen zongmu<\/em> \u5d07\u6587\u7e3d\u76ee) all list it as a work of historical geography; the History of the Song Dynasty<\/em> (Song shi<\/em>\n \u5b8b\u53f2) classifies it as a classic work on the five elements. Later, in the\n Ming dynasty, Hu Yinglin \u80e1\u61c9\u9e9f (1551-1602) regarded it as \u201ca progenitor \nof fantastic tales ancient and modern\u201d10<\/sup>; and, in the Qing (1644-1911), the authoritative Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries<\/em> (Siku quanshu<\/em>\n \u56db\u5eab\u5168\u66f8) classified the text as a classic work of fantastic literature, \nopining that it is \u201cin fact the oldest example of fiction.\u201d11<\/sup> These differences in classification are, on the one hand, due to the varied, complex content of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>,\n a work that is inherently difficult to categorize, and on the other, to\n changes in readers\u2019 categorization standards over time. And we should \nnote that, although the Classic<\/em> was categorized as a work of \nhistorical geography in the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) \ndynasties, it was still not considered to be an appropriate source for \nwritings on foreign lands in the orthodox dynastic histories. It is not \ndifficult to understand why: the notion of \u201cbarbarian\u201d as it is used in \nthe histories, derives from the tributary relationships long established\n between China and other peoples (\u201cbarbarians\u201d). There was never any \nindication, however, that it was possible to interact with the strange \ncreatures of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> within the context of a tribute system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>, although either ignored \nor repudiated by the compilers of the orthodox dynastic histories, did \nat last find a home in encyclopedic writings on \u201cbarbarians.\u201d The \nstrange creatures of the Classic<\/em> were included, apparently for the first time, in the official Song-era encyclopedia Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era<\/em> (Taiping yulan<\/em> \u592a\u5e73\u5fa1\u89bd), compiled between 977 and 983. That is, the inclusion of the strange creatures from the Classic<\/em>\n in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of daily-use encyclopedias of the Ming was\n in fact a continuation of an earlier encyclopedic tradition, not a \nunique feature of these encyclopedias. Thus, the question is not simply \nwhy the creatures of the Classic<\/em> appear in the late-Ming works, but why these works chose to follow the course set by Imperial Readings \u2014<\/em> despite the judgment of the orthodox histories \u2014 and include portions of the Classic<\/em> in their sections on barbarians. The process of inclusion involved alterations in the form of the information adopted from the Classic<\/em>. We will inquire into the social and cultural significance of these alterations in the late-Ming context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This paper is divided into three main sections, which attempt to \nanswer the questions raised above. Encyclopedias, by their nature, are \ncompiled through classification and define categories of information. \nTherefore, in the first section of this paper, I will analyze how the \nchanges in compilation methods influenced the formation of the \n\u201cBarbarians\u201d section in daily-use encyclopedias by comparing the \ncompilation methods for the Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs (Shilin guangji<\/em> \u4e8b\u6797\u5ee3\u8a18),<\/em>\n a Yuan-dynasty daily-use encyclopedia, with those of the late-Ming \ndaily-use encyclopedias. Secondly, while \u201cBarbarians\u201d is a traditional \nencyclopedia category, we still have to confront the question of how \nthis category of information contributed to the encyclopedias\u2019 stated \ngoal of providing practical guidance for everyday life. By reconsidering\n the concept of \u201cpracticality,\u201d I will probe the significance of the \n\u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of the encyclopedias in the sociocultural context \nof the late-Ming dynasty \u2014 a time when the tribute system was in fact \nbreaking down and there was therefore little need for \u201cdaily-life\u201d \ninformation about foreign lands. Finally, by examining late-Ming world \nmaps, this paper will inquire into how the images of foreign lands in \nthe encyclopedias influenced the way in which China received western \ngeographic knowledge of the world. In sum, this essay will attempt to \nprovide a fuller picture of cultural history than the two-dimensional, \nbinary framework of concrete geographical information versus fanciful \nfabrications that past scholars have traditionally used when discussing \nthe \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although daily-use encyclopedias only truly came to be published in \nlarge quantities during the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth \ncenturies, the earliest extant daily-use encyclopedia is the Yuan \ndynasty version of Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs<\/em>, compiled by the Southern Song period scholar Chen Yuanjing \u9673\u5143\u975a.12<\/sup> Versions of the Expansive Record<\/em>\n with additions, supplements, deletions, and revisions were constantly \nin circulation throughout the Southern Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. \nIn this section, I hope to gain an understanding of the unique \ncharacteristics of the descriptions of foreign lands in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d\n sections of the late-Ming dynasty wanbao quanshu<\/em> by comparing the compilation methods of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of the different editions of the Expansive Record<\/em>\n and various Ming dynasty daily-use encyclopedias, and by clarifying how\n the changes in compilation methods shaped the information on foreign \nlands in the encyclopedias from the Yuan to the late Ming. In the course\n of this comparison, I will examine the contrasts between different \nversions, the borrowing and copying of the text describing foreign \nlands, and even the unique layout and design of the encyclopedias. Only \nby taking the physical aspects of the manufacturing of these books into \naccount can we properly understand the significance of late-Ming \ndaily-use encyclopedias’ discussions of barbarians in Chinese cultural \nhistory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As previously stated, the first inclusion of the strange creatures of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> in the \u201cbarbarians\u201d category can be traced to the late tenth-century Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era.<\/em>\n In a section titled \u201cBarbarians of the Four Directions\u201d, it treats \nbarbarians from the east, south, west, and north, in that order, drawing\n on materials from a range of sources, including biographies of \nbarbarians in the orthodox dynastic histories, records of local customs \nand traditions, and anecdote collections (biji<\/em> \u7b46\u8a18), as well as works such as the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Classic of Divine Marvels<\/em> (Shen yi jing<\/em> \u795e\u7570\u7d93, 2nd<\/sup> c. BCE), Record of Foreign Matters<\/em> (Yiwu zhi<\/em> \u7570\u7269\u5fd7, early 3rd<\/sup> c.), Map of Foreign Countries<\/em> (Waiguo tu<\/em>\n \u5916\u570b\u5716). Entries drawn from the latter are collected mainly in the final \npart of the \u201cSouthern Barbarians\u201d section. It is apparent that the \ncompilers gave priority to reliable information from the orthodox \ndynastic histories in arranging the entries. Early alternate editions of\n the Expansive Record<\/em> also generally follow this approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Expansive Record<\/em> was published during the late Song \ndynasty, but no block-printed editions from the Song have survived. \nThree different lineages of Yuan dynasty versions are currently extant, \nthose deriving from the 1325 woodblock edition reprinted in Japan in \n1699 (hereafter referred to as the 1325 edition); from the New Edition, with Illustrations and Additions, of the Encyclopedic Expansive<\/em> Record of the Forest of Affairs (Xinbian zuantu zengxin qunshu leiyao shilin guangji<\/em> \u65b0\u7de8\u7e82\u5716\u589e\u65b0\u7fa4\u66f8\u985e\u8981\u4e8b\u6797\u5ee3\u8a18) of 1330-1333 (referred to below as the 1330s editions); and from the 1340 Encyclopedia<\/em> Record of the Forest of Affairs, with Illustrations and Additions<\/em> (Zuantu zengxin qunshu leiyao shilin guangji<\/em> \u7e82\u5716\u589e\u65b0\u7fa4\u66f8\u985e\u8981\u58eb\u6797\u5ee3\u8a18). The numerous Ming dynasty reprints are all new block-printed editions of one of the above lineages.13<\/sup>\n As the contents of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections in the 1330s and 1340 \neditions are exactly the same, I will compare the 1325 editions to the \n1330s editions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1325 Expansive Record<\/em> edition, information on \nbarbarians is presented in fascicle 8 under the title \u201cMiscellaneous \nRecords of Island Barbarians.\u201d The content focuses mainly on countries \nthat can be reached by sea from Chinese ports, including Champa, \nPanduranga, Chenla, and Srivijaya to China\u2019s southwest, and extending as\n far as the Arabic empire and Sindhu; they are listed in order of \nincreasing distance from China. 14<\/sup>\n The entries for countries near southwest China list wind directions for\n voyages by boat and travel distances from Guangzhou. For instance, the \nentry for Champa reads, \u201cThe kingdom of Champa lies across the ocean to \nthe southwest. Champa is a short distance from Guangzhou, taking eight \ndays to reach with favorable wind.\u201d The entry for Chenla states \n\u201cTraveling by boat with the aid of the north wind, the journey takes ten\n days.\u201d However, with regard to more distant lands not easily reached by\n boat from China, no information is provided. These entries make it \napparent that the compilers based their writings on actual ocean \nvoyages, and thus the lands closer to China are described in greater \ndetail, while there is a relative lack of information on more distant \nlands.15<\/sup>\n At the bottom of the \u201cMiscellaneous Records\u201d section, the compilers of \nthe 1325 edition note that \u201cThis document is based on official Guangzhou\n ship records,\u201d likely referring to the ocean voyage records of the \nSouthern Song Guangzhou Seaport Office. Many parts of \u201cMiscellaneous \nRecords\u201d were copied word for word from the Record of Foreign Matters<\/em> (Zhufan zhi<\/em> \u8af8\u8543\u5fd7)16<\/sup>\n written by Song dynasty historian and official Zhao Rukuo \u8d99\u6c5d\u9002 \n(1170-1228) during his tenure at the Quanzhou Seaport Office. Fascicle 9\n of the 1325 edition, under the title \u201cStrange Creatures of the \nMountains, Seas, and Clouds,\u201d presents various strange creatures from \nthe Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>; and then, fantastic humanoid creatures \u2014 immortals, people with giant ears, three-headed people, etc. \u2014from the Classic.<\/em> Thus the 1325 edition of the Expansive Record<\/em> distinguishes actual countries from countries populated by legendary nonhuman or humanoid creatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 1 : From \u201cMiscellaneous Records of Island Barbarians,\u201d New \nEdition of the Encyclopedic Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs ) \nXinbian qunshu leiyao Shilin guangji \u65b0\u7de8\u7fa4\u66f8\u985e\u8981\u4e8b\u6797\u5ee3\u8a18 (1699 Japanese reprint \nof 1325 block-printed edition)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between the somewhat later 1330s edition and 1340s edition of the Expansive Record,<\/em>\n compilation methods changed. In these two later editions, the \ncorresponding section is entitled \u201cMiscellaneous Records of Tributary \nLands.\u201d Departing from the 1325 edition, this section adds, after all \nthe lands listed in the \u201cMiscellaneous Records\u201d section of the 1325 \nedition, ten-odd nonhuman kingdoms listed in works such as the Record of Divine Marvels, Record of Wide-ranging Knowledge (Bowu zhi<\/em> \u535a\u7269\u5fd7, late 3rd<\/sup> c.), Miscellaneous Tales from Youyang (Youyang zazu<\/em> \u9149\u967d\u96dc\u7d44, 9th<\/sup> c.), Records of Guangzhou<\/em> (Guangzhou ji<\/em> \u5ee3\u5dde\u8a18, 4th<\/sup>-5th<\/sup> c.). The humanoid creatures from the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>\n featured in the 1325 edition are added at the end. That is, in the 1325\n editions, actual foreign lands that can be reached by sea are separated\n from the humanoid (and non-human) creatures of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Record of Divine Marvels<\/em>, and Record of Wide-ranging Knowledge<\/em>,\n but in the 1330s editions and the 1340 edition, they are grouped \ntogether. This difference in editions highlights the compilers\u2019 \ndiffering images of foreign geography. In the 1325 edition, we see that \nhuman and nonhuman lands do not share either the same textual or \ngeographic space. In the earlier editions, the nonhuman lands from the Classic<\/em> are placed in a separate section, in a distinct mythological space. In fact, the original text of the Classic<\/em>\n refers to these nonhuman lands as \u201cguo\u201d (\u201ccountries\u201d \u570b), as in the \nCountry of the Immortals, the Country of the Giant-Eared, the Country of\n the Three-Headed, and so on. While the descriptions of these countries \nin the 1325 edition of the Expansive Record<\/em> are copied from the Classic,<\/em>\n the titles of the entries refer to the \u201cren\u201d (people\u4eba) instead of \n\u201cguo,\u201d emphasizing the beings rather than the lands they inhabit. This \nmay be a subtle change, but it is maintained from beginning to end, \nsuggesting that the compilers made the change in a deliberate, \nsystematic way. The change emphasizes the absolute differences between \nvarieties of creatures, not merely their cultural differences. In other \nwords, these strange creatures of myth and legend do not comprise \n\u201ccountries.\u201d This change is consistent with the compilers\u2019 placement of \nnonhuman creatures in a section separate from that on real countries and\n peoples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As previously stated, the 1330s edition groups both sections \u2014 that \nincluding fantastic humanoid creatures and that listing real countries \u2014\n together in a single section. It would be overly simplistic, however, \nto understand this move as a mingling of reality and fantasy. To begin \nwith, it is important to note that while the 1330s edition places the \nnonhuman creatures of the 1325 edition along with real human countries, \nthe compilers of this edition also change the titles of the entries so \nthat they again refer to \u201ccountries\u201d instead of \u201cpeople.\u201d However, this \ndoes not indicate a return to the original text of the Classic of Mountains and Seas.<\/em>\n In fact, this change is in accordance with the logic behind the \ncompilation of the relevant section of the 1330s edition. This section \nhas a multilayered structure: the first part presents actual countries \nfound in official government records, the middle part reproduces the \ncontent of works of the recent past about legendary countries made up of\n both human and nonhuman creatures, and the final part presents nonhuman\n creatures from the ancient Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>. \nThese compilation methods reflect a traditional image of geography: \nlands nearer to China are seen as normal and populated by humans, while \nlands further from China are seen as abnormal and populated by nonhuman \ncreatures. Of course, this accords with the traditional moralistic image\n of geography involving a Sinocentric world order. It must also be \npointed out, however, that the three portions of this section are based \non, from first to last in order, Song dynasty ocean voyage records, \nbooks of marvels from the third through the ninth centuries, and finally\n the very early Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>. That is, the \nstructure of the section proceeds from nearest to farthest in terms of \ngeography, from human to nonhuman in terms of type of creature, and from\n most recent to most ancient in terms of textual source. Not only do \nthese compilation practices transform the untamed humanoid creatures of \nthe 1325 editions into geographical foreign countries, they also \nrepresent the concept of a single worldwide cultural order unifying \nnon-Chinese cultures and nonhuman creatures. At the same time, they \nreorganize geographical knowledge from recent to ancient and situate it \nin a shared contemporary geographical and textual space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the exception of the revised editions of Expansive Records of the Forest of Affairs<\/em>,\n the vast majority of Ming daily-use encyclopedias were published late \nin the dynasty, during the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth \ncenturies. The layout of these works is quite different from that of the\n Expansive Record.<\/em> To reduce costs, in many cases Ming \npublishers (particularly in Jianyang, Fujian, an important commercial \npublishing site noted for its popular imprints) employed a layout that \nseparated book pages into upper and lower registers, with each register \npresenting information on different topics. In the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections\n of daily-use encyclopedias, not only was the traditional layout of \nvertical text on every page refashioned into pages divided into upper \nand lower registers, but illustrations were also inserted into the upper\n and lower registers for each entry. For instance, in one wanbao quanshu<\/em>,\n the upper register of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d section is \u201cStrange Creatures of\n the Mountains and Seas\u201d and the bottom register is \u201cMiscellaneous \nRecords of Foreign Barbarians\u201d (see Figure 2). This division appears at \nfirst glance to copy the separation between \u201cStrange Creatures of the \nMountains and Seas\u201d and \u201cMiscellaneous Records of the Island Barbarians\u201d\n in the 1325 editions of the Expansive Record<\/em>. However, it should be noted that, unlike the 1325 editions of the Expansive Record,<\/em> in the wanbao quanshu<\/em>,\n nonhuman creatures are not placed in the upper \u201cStrange Creatures of \nthe Mountains and Seas\u201d section, but alongside human countries in the \nlower \u201cMiscellaneous Records of Foreign Barbarians\u201d section. For \ninstance, the Country of Winged People of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> is placed alongside the country of Pekalongan in the north of Java.17<\/sup>\n There are countless such examples throughout late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias. This arrangement differs from both the 1325 and the 1330s\n editions of the Expansive Record of the Forest of<\/em> Affairs; the\n former distinguished actual countries from humanoid and non-human \ncreatures, and the latter placed humanoid creatures after accounts of \n(real) tributary lands in order to illustrate the concept of a \nstratified, Sinocentric, cultural order. In contrast, the wanbao quanshu<\/em> mingle actual countries with nonhuman countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 2: \u201cBarbarians,\u201d Complete Book of Myriad Treasures in Marvelous Brocade (Miaojin wanbao quanshu \u5999\u9326\u842c\u5bf6\u5168\u66f8 (1612)<\/p>\n\n\n\n This choice is best seen, however, not as a reversal of the practices\n of earlier daily-use encyclopedias, but rather as the result of \ncompilers\u2019 assimilation of contemporary intellectual discourse on \nforeign lands into the new encyclopedias. Miura Kunio points out that \nthe \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of the wanbao quanshu<\/em> and other late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias seem to follow various versions of Record of Naked Creatures<\/em> (Luochong lu<\/em> \u8d0f\u87f2\u9304; later retitled Yiyu zhi<\/em> \u7570\u57df\u5fd7or Record of Different Regions<\/em> ) by Zhou Zhizhong \u5468\u81f4\u4e2d (fl. 14th<\/sup> c.) of the Yuan dynasty, with some changes to the order of the countries.18<\/sup> Ge Zhaoguang observes that Record of Naked Creatures<\/em>\n already, well before the late-Ming encyclopedias, mixes \u201creal\u201d \ncountries reachable from China by sea with the nonhuman countries of the\n Classic of Mountains and Seas.<\/em>19<\/sup> The mixture of concrete geographical information and strange nonhuman creatures of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>\n found in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias\n is not a unique feature of these works, but rather a continuation of a \ntradition in travel logs of the late Yuan and early Ming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However influential this text may have been, the \u201cBarbarians\u201d \nsections of the late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias are not merely \nillustrated versions of Record of Naked Creatures<\/em>. The unique \npage formatting requirements of the daily-use encyclopedias make the \nmixture of concrete geographical information with the fantastic accounts\n in the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> more conspicuous. \nIdeally, in works with two registers per page, the text on each register\n should come to an end on the same page. In actual practice, however, \nthere are many cases in which the upper register has concluded while the\n lower has yet to come to an end (or vice-versa). Therefore, to even out\n the layout, content that ought to appear in the lower register is often\n shifted to the one above. For example, in Santai\u2019s Infinitely \nUseful [Guide to] How to Do Everything Correctly for the Convenient \nConsultation of All the Four Classes under Heaven, Newly Cut<\/em> (Xinke tianxia simin bianlan Santai wanyong zhengzong<\/em>\n \u65b0\u523b\u5929\u4e0b\u56db\u6c11\u4fbf\u89bd\u4e09\u53f0\u842c\u7528\u6b63\u5b97, 1599), in order to accommodate layout requirements, not\n only is the original two-register layout changed to a layout with three\n or four equally sized registers, blurring the boundaries between the \n\u201cmythical creatures\u201d and (real) \u201cbarbarians\u201d originally separated in the\n two-register layout, but the human countries that ought to appear in \nthe lower \u201cbarbarians\u201d register are also shifted to the upper register \nunder the title \u201cStrange Phenomena of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>\u201d\n (see Figure 3). Thus, the mixture of reality and fantasy, as Miura puts\n it, appears not only in the lower \u201cMiscellaneous Records of Barbarians\u201d\n section, but also at times crosses over to the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 3: \u201cBarbarians,\u201d Santai\u2019s Infinitely Useful [Guide to] How to Do Everything Correctly (1599)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The above comparison of compilation practices from the various editions of the Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs<\/em>\n to the daily-use encyclopedias of the late-sixteenth and seventeenth \ncentury shows that, from the late-Southern Song dynasty to the late-Ming\n dynasty, differing approaches were taken to compiling the \u201cBarbarians\u201d \nsections of daily-use encyclopedias: at first, concrete geographical \ninformation was strictly separated from the descriptions drawn from the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>; later, stratified compilation practices situated the nonhuman countries of the Classic<\/em>\n at the outer periphery of geographical and textual space; and finally \nthe categories mingled chaotically, blurring all boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ge Zhaoguang has asked: \u201cWhy, in spite of the fact that the Chinese \nhad been acquiring an increasing amount of factual knowledge of foreign \nlands from the Yuan and Ming, were images of foreign lands consistently \ndrawn from much earlier classical speculations and understandings?\u201d20<\/sup>\n Amending this question to apply to the late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias, we can ask: Why do the encyclopedias not only mingle \nconcrete geographical knowledge with the ancient \u2014 and fantastical \u2014 \nknowledge of the Classic of Mountains and Seas,<\/em> but also conspicuously highlight<\/em> this mingling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before answering this question, however, it is necessary to examine \nin greater detail the significance of the creation of this \u201cfantastical\u201d\n knowledge. To divide the countries described in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d \nsections of late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias into real and imaginary is\n simplistic. In fact, the information in the encyclopedias that is not \ndrawn from factual accounts of foreign lands does not necessarily \noriginate in mythical works or records of the strange like Classic of \nMountains and Seas or In Search of the Supernatural (Sou shen ji \u641c\u795e\u8a18, \nmid-4th c.). In fact, many of these lands \u2014 Karasahr, the Uyghur \nKhaganate, and the Roman Empire \u2014 appear frequently in historical \nrecords; the only reason they appear fantastical is that they were no \nlonger in existence in the Ming. These countries of the past, the \nimagined countries of Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>, and the actual countries described in travel logs like Record of Foreign Matters<\/em> are all mingled in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of daily-use encyclopedias. For instance, the Complete Book of Myriad Treasures in Miraculous Brocade<\/em> (Miaojin wanbao quanshu<\/em> \u5999\u9326\u842c\u5bf6\u5168\u66f8) places the Country of the Impalers from the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> beside the \u201creal\u201d Tang-era western country of Karasahr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The insertion of historical kingdoms into the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections \nof late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias indicates that the \u201cmingling\u201d of \ninformation in these sections should not be seen merely as fact \ncoexisting with fantasy. Rather, these sections adopt an informational \nframework that breaks down the boundary between real and fabricated, \nsimultaneously presenting geographical knowledge from different time \nperiods and adopting an expositional method in which countries \ninterlink, interpenetrate, overlap, and interlock across textual and \ngeographic space. The compilers were not overly concerned with whether \nthese historical countries had disappeared by the late-Ming or whether \nthey were anywhere to be found in contemporary geographic space. Looked \nat in this light, it is highly doubtful whether the compilers of \ndaily-use encyclopedias saw the fantastic foreign creatures of Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>\n as imaginary and the concrete geographic information as \u201creal\u201d \u2014 or \nwhether the coexistence of concrete geographical information and \ninformation from the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> can be \nunderstood as a mixture of fact and fantasy. Perhaps the compilers of \nlate-Ming daily-use encyclopedias did not regard the Classic<\/em> as\n a \u201cfantastical\u201d or fabricated \u2014 as opposed to a factual \u2014 text, but \nsimply as a component of ancient geographical knowledge. They present \ngeographical knowledge in an entirely different way from the 1330s \nedition of the Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs<\/em>, using a distinctive method of compilation to organize ancient geographical knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A reader here might reasonably ask, \u201cWhy was it so important for \ndaily-use encyclopedias to find a place for ancient geographical \nknowledge?\u201d Of what practical \u201cdaily life\u201d use was this knowledge? But, \nif, as Wang Cheng-hua points out, encyclopedias by their very nature \ncollect and categorize different types of information, 21<\/sup>\n the key questions become, rather: how did late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias situate this knowledge of foreign lands? What are the \ndifferences \u2014 and the significance of the differences \u2014 between their \nmethods and those of earlier encyclopedias? The ways in which the \n\u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias situate \nancient geographical knowledge reveal the \u201ceveryday pragmatization\u201d of \nancient geographical knowledge in the late Ming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here Shang Wei\u2019s perspective on the practical nature of daily-use \nencyclopedias is worth considering. He believes that these encyclopedias\n are constituted not of faithful depictions of daily life in the Ming \ndynasty, but of discourses on the meaning of daily life. As the \nencyclopedias were continually reprinted, revised, and supplemented, \nthis discourse shaped readers\u2019 imagination of social life.22<\/sup>\n Here, I have adapted Shang Wei\u2019s perspective by going a step further, \ntaking the view that the encyclopedias are practical in that they \ndiscuss daily pragmatic matters \u2014 that is, they profess to contain \nverifiable, actionable information that will achieve certain results and\n experiences that can be reproduced. For instance, the \u201cMedical \nLearning\u201d (\u201cYixue\u201d \u91ab\u5b78) sections of Yuan and Ming daily-use encyclopedias\n often describe the immediate treatment effects of ancient medicinal \nformulas as \u201cinstantly effective upon administration,\u201d \u201ccertain not to \nfail,\u201d and \u201cassured to be effective.\u201d Moreover, when revised editions of\n these works were published, they always contained new and updated \nancient formulas. While medicines said to be \u201ceffective\u201d for particular \nconditions were numerous and constantly changing, the reliability of the\n formulas and the reproducibility of the treatment methods were \nconstantly emphasized. That is, daily-use encyclopedias are practical \nnot only in that compilers selected (or at least claimed to select) \npractical information for use in daily life, but also because they \nedited the entries to make it easy for every reader to understand \ninformation that was vague or hard to verify in the original source \ntexts the encyclopedia compilers drew on. The \u201cJing Chen\u2019s Chart\u201d (\u201cJing\n Chen zhi tu\u201d \u7af6\u8fb0\u4e4b\u5716) entry in the Expansive Record of the Forest of \nAffairs is a classic example. As Stephen West points out, \u201cJing Chen\u2019s \nChart\u201d lays out a linear schedule that, using quantitative methods, \nprovides a complete preparatory plan for imperial civil service \nexamination candidates. This examination preparation schedule makes \ninformation objective, so that the acquisition of knowledge required for\n the imperial civil service examination no longer depends solely upon \nreaders\u2019 quick wits, but upon each individual\u2019s replication of the \nspecific steps necessary to prepare for the examinations.23<\/sup>\n To provide another example: to the readers of late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias, particularly those who were traveling merchants, \ninformation about travel routes was of vital importance, but also \ndifficult to represent. The \u201cGeography\u201d (\u201cDiyu\u201d \u5730\u57df) sections of \nlate-Ming daily-use encyclopedias generally contain route guides in \nentries like \u201cTravel Routes to the Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces\u201d \nand \u201cJade Mirror of Empire-wide Travel Routes\u201d; these provided travelers\n with the names of places passed on the way from the capitals to the \nprovinces, distances between places, and even information on pitfalls \nand dangers to be aware of while traveling. \u201cTravel Route Songs,\u201d \nversified summaries of this information in easy to memorize formulas, \nwere appended to the ends of the route guides. Daily-use encyclopedias \nare practical not because their content can in fact be put into \npractice, but because they repeatedly emphasize and guarantee that \nparticular goals (both abstract and concrete) can be attained through \nfollowing a sequence of certain steps, using certain tools, within a \ncertain time span. From this point of view, we should cease trying to \nexplicate the relationship between \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections and actual \ndaily life; rather, we should ask how the compilers of encyclopedias \ncreated and organized the contents of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections in \naccordance with this principle of daily life usefulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the compilers excerpted the descriptions of foreign lands by \nscholars from the Yuan onwards in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of the \nencyclopedias, they simultaneously edited the information to make it \nmore practically useful. One of the most conspicuous manifestations of \nthis transition to greater usefulness is the addition of the distances \nbetween China and the countries of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections; the \nlate-Ming encyclopedias list the time required to complete such trips by\n specific transportation methods. They frequently state that one country\n or another was \u201cX years and X months to Yingtian Prefecture24<\/sup> [on horseback].\u201d To be sure, this was not the first time distances had been included, for both the Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs<\/em> and the Record of Different Regions<\/em>\n often noted the distance between Chinese capitals, major cities, and \n\u201cbarbarian\u201d countries. But, in these relatively early texts, distances \nappear to be indicated only for countries like Champa and Chenla that \ncould be reached by sea from China. By contrast, the \u201cBarbarians\u201d \nsections of daily-use encyclopedias published in the late Ming began to \nindicate distances for an extremely large number of countries, including\n distant and legendary, human and nonhuman, countries. For instance, the\n Five Carts of Select Brocade for the Profitable Use and Convenient Consultation by All under Heaven<\/em> (Tianxia simin liyong bianguan wuche bajin<\/em>\n \u5929\u4e0b\u56db\u6c11\u5229\u7528\u4fbf\u89c0\u4e94\u8eca\u62d4\u9326, 1597) states that the Country of Dogs, comprised of men \nwith dogs\u2019 heads and human bodies and Chinese women, is \u201ctwo years to \nYingtian Prefecture on horseback\u201d; that the Country of Long-Haired \nPeople, who live in caves and have hair all over their faces and bodies,\n is \u201ctwo years and ten months to Yingtian Prefecture on horseback\u201d; that\n the Country of Monkey Men, who wage war to defend their homeland, is \n\u201cthree years to Yingtian Prefecture\u201d; and that the Country of Galloping \nSpirits, where people grow hair from the knee down, have hooves, and are\n skilled runners who can travel one hundred miles by foot in the span of\n a day, is \u201ctwo years by horse to Yingtian Prefecture.\u201d Santai\u2019s \nInfinitely Useful [Guide to] How to Do Everything Correctly contains \nsimilar descriptions. Assembled Illustrations of the Three Realms: \nHeaven, Earth, Man (Sancai tuhui \u4e09\u624d\u5716\u6703)\uff0ccompiled in 1607 by Wang Qi \u738b\u573b \n(1530-1615) and published in 1609; the 1607 Gems of Learning from the \nExpansive Record of the Hanlin Academy Collected for the Use of All Four\n Classes of People, Newly Published with Additions and Revisions (Xinkan\n hanyuan guangji buding simin jieyong xuehai qunyu \u65b0\u520a\u7ff0\u82d1\u5ee3\u8a18\u88dc\u8a02\u56db\u6c11\u6377\u7528\u5b78\u6d77\u7fa4\u7389); \nand Orthodox [Guide to] a Myriad [Categories] of Useful Information for \nScholars and Commoners Compiled at the Pavilion of Revered Culture [So \nThat They] Need Not Seek the Advice of Others, Just Newly Cut (Dingqin \nChongwen ge huizuan shimin wanyong zhengzong buqiuren \u9f0e\u92df\u5d07\u6587\u95a3\u5f59\u7e82\u58eb\u6c11\u842c\u7528\u6b63\u5b97\u4e0d\u6c42\u4eba, \n1607) use the same descriptions as well, but in a slightly different \norder. Other than the exclusion of the Country of Long-Haired People, \nthe Marvelous Book of Myriad Treasures from the Forest of Literati for \nthe Use of All, Newly Edited and Fully Supplemented (Xinban quanbu \ntianxia shiyong wenlin miaojin wanbao quanshu \u65b0\u677f\u5168\u88dc\u5929\u4e0b\u4fbf\u7528\u6587\u6797\u5999\u9326\u842c\u5bf6\u5168\u66f8, 1614) is\n exactly the same. It is worth noting that the Profound Collection of \nMarvelous Works from the Forest of Literati for the Consultation and \nConvenient Use of Scholars, Completely Supplemented and Newly Published \n(Xinkan quanbu shimin beilan bianyong wenlin huijin wanshu yuanhai \n\u65b0\u523b\u5168\u88dc\u58eb\u6c11\u5099\u89bd\u4fbf\u7528\u6587\u6797\u532f\u9326\u842c\u66f8\u6df5\u6d77, 1610) contains no record of the Country of Dogs or \nthe Country of Galloping Spirits, but does retain the Country of Monkey \nMen and the Country of Long-Haired People, and adds a description of the\n Country of Bird People, \u201cwhere people have three claws,\u201d which is \u201cfive\n months by horse to Yingtian Prefecture.\u201d Daily-use encyclopedias \npublished prior to 1610, however, all contain entries on the Country of \nBird People, but do not include any information about its distance from \nChina; this information was deliberately added to the Profound Collection of Marvelous Works from the Forest of Literati<\/em>,\n suggesting that markers of distance from China (e.g., \u201cX months by \nhorse to Yingtian Prefecture\u201d) were a means of granting special \nsignificance to the country described. Such descriptions reflect the \nidea that if these strange, distant, unknowable countries could be \nreached by particular transportation methods within a certain number of \ndays, their relationship to China could be made concrete and \nexperiential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 4: \u201cBarbarians,\u201d Profound Collection of Marvelous Works from \nthe Forest of Literati for the Consultation and Convenient Use of \nScholars, Completely Supplemented and Newly Published, 1610 woodblock \nedition<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we recall as well the previously noted tendency of late-Ming \ndaily-use encyclopedias to include ancient geographical knowledge, it is\n clear that these descriptions of foreign lands formed a discourse that \nhad both a historical dimension and a practical character: countries a \nshort distance from China by sea, remote countries of legend, the \nhumanoid creatures of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>, and \nvanished countries of the past, although not noted in route guides, were\n made accessible to one another, by boat or by horse, through the \njumbled layouts of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of the encyclopedias. At \nthe same time, the dress and customs of these countries were often \ndescribed as similar to those of some other land. For instance, the \ninhabitants of the Country of People with Rear-Looking Eyes are said to \nbe \u201cas closely unified as the Tatars.\u201d While such descriptions serve on \nthe one hand to make these countries seem more real, on the other, they \nrepresent attempts to place these countries within a mutually \ninfluential cultural system. This discourse, unlike that of travel logs \nor route guides, is not provided for practical reference by travelers. \nForeign travel is clearly not the point: phrases such as \u201cX months by \nhorse to Yingtian Prefecture\u201d do not describe departing from China for \nthese foreign lands, but arriving in China from<\/em> the foreign countries described.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The direction of travel described here \u2014 from a foreign country to \nChina \u2014 assumes a tributary relationship between \u201cbarbarians\u201d and China.\n In fact, use of the phrase \u201cX months by horse to Yingtian Prefecture\u201d \ncontinues a tradition of writing about foreign lands originating in very\n early biographies of \u201cbarbarians\u201d. From the History of the Han Dynasty<\/em>\n onward, the orthodox dynastic histories begin using descriptions such \nas \u201cX miles to the capital,\u201d \u201cX months and X days by sea,\u201d and \u201cits \ncustoms resemble those of country X in describing foreign lands.\u201d During\n the Song dynasty, such descriptions of \u201cbarbarian\u201d countries were not \nlimited to historical works, but were also employed in large-scale \nofficial encyclopedias such as Outstanding Models from the Storehouse of\n Literature (Cefu yuangui \u518a\u5e9c\u5143\u9f9c). When sea-based transportation \nproliferated after the Song dynasty, it became customary to refer to \n\u201cbarbarian\u201d countries by indicating their travel distance from China. \nThus, the \u201cBiographies of Foreigners\u201d section of the early-Ming History \nof the Yuan Dynasty (Yuan shi \u5143\u53f2) explains, \u201c[Champa] is close to \nQiongzhou, one day away by boat with favorable winds\u201d and \u201c[Countries \nsuch as Malabar] are approximately 3000 miles from Quanzhou. From these \ncountries, Kish Island25<\/sup> can be reached in approximately fifteen days by sea with favorable wind.\u201d26<\/sup>\n That is, descriptions such as \u201cX months by horse to Yingtian \nPrefecture\u201d in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias highlight one of the unique textual characteristics of \nthese encyclopedias: the trend toward experiential, practical \ndescriptions. At the same time, in light of the fact that such phrases \nreplicate descriptions in the biographies of foreigners in the orthodox \ndynastic histories, they also represent a kind of discourse on the \ntribute system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 5: \u201cBarbarians,\u201d Complete Book of Myriad Treasures in Marvelous Brocade (1612 woodblock edition)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, descriptions such as \u201cX months by horse to Yingtian \nPrefecture\u201d are not the only expressions in the encyclopedias of the \nconcept of the imperial tribute system. Often the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections \nof these texts open with an illustration of foreigners entering the \ncapital to offer tribute (see Figure 5), suggesting that imperial \ntribute was in fact the central theme of \u201cBarbarians.\u201d So, too, the \n\u201clocal products\u201d from foreign countries listed in these sections \nindicate what was offered in tribute. Thus, in the 1607 Gems of Learning from the Expansive Record of the Hanlin Academy<\/em>, the description of the Country of People with Miraculous Arms from the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>\n adds to the descriptions of the \u201clocal products\u201d of this country, such \nas pearls and other rare items, in previous daily-use encyclopedias. \nGiven the other indications that the tribute system was a theme in these\n works, the descriptions of local products was most likely not intended \nto tell Chinese merchants of opportunities for overseas commercial \ntravel, but rather to inform readers of the kind of tribute that foreign\n peoples were likely to bring to China. Reflecting on the ways in which \nthe \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of the late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias reuse\n and reshape the information on the strange creatures of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> presented in the earlier Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs<\/em> and the still earlier Imperial Readings from the Taiping Era<\/em>,\n we can draw the following conclusions: The descriptions of foreign \nlands in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of the late-Ming encyclopedias do \nmuch more than satisfy readers\u2019 curiosity. They fuse practical everyday \ndiscourse with traditional historical depictions of barbarians, \nreconfiguring the relationship between China and foreign lands and \nemphasizing what might be called imaginary tribute brought to the Ming \ncourt by \u201cbarbarians\u201d from across the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fixation of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of these encyclopedias on \nimperial tribute is tied to the very pressing contemporary issue of the \nbreakdown of tributary relationships. The tribute system, previously a \nrather loosely structured series of symbolically hierarchical \nrelationships between China and its outlying polities, had been \nformalized in the early Ming dynasty through the institution of certain \nrituals of subordination and gift exchange. But, by late in the dynasty,\n this system was in decay. With the raids by southern pirates27<\/sup>\n in the mid-sixteenth century and later, and the invasions by the \nnorthern Jurchen people beginning in the late-sixteenth century, \nbarbarians were no longer merely objects of curiosity. The Jurchen \ninvasion not only put extreme pressure on frontier defense officials, it\n posed a genuine threat to the lives of ordinary people. For the people \nof the Fujian region, where daily-use encyclopedias were published in \nthe greatest numbers, the pirate invasions were particularly threatening\n \u2014 truly a matter of life and death. When the imperial tribute system in\n fact did break down, and the central government could no longer ensure \npolitical and cultural order through tributary relationships, the \n\u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of daily-use encyclopedias were, in a sense, \nattempts by commoners to reestablish the tributary order through textual\n production. Commercial publishers, with their eyes on the market, \nsupported this effort. In order to increase book sales, it was common \nfor commercial publisher-booksellers to continually release revised and \nexpanded editions of daily-use encyclopedias in hopes of attracting \nreaders with the latest information. The frequent revisions and \nexpansions also, of course, reflect the compilers\u2019 constant collection \nof knowledge and information, in particular knowledge and information \nrelevant to contemporary concerns. For the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections, \ncollection of new knowledge meant \u201ccollecting\u201d tributary states and \ntheir products. By adding new vassal states and their local products \nwith each revision, encyclopedia compilers were intimately involved in \nreimagining tributary relationships. To be sure, late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias did not construct knowledge of \u201cbarbarians\u201d as the \nbiographies of \u201cbarbarians\u201d in the orthodox dynastic histories did, \nsystematically categorizing them by north, south, east and west. \nHowever, encyclopedia compilers were engaged in the gathering, \nselection, and categorization of information, processes that imply an \nattempt to reconstruct some sort of order and structure. In this sense, \ncuriosity and public interest in new knowledge were not the only reasons\n why late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias contained \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections \nor why new editions featuring new information about \u201cbarbarians\u201d were \ncontinually released; the main reason is that, by gathering and \ncategorizing knowledge, daily-use encyclopedia editors were attempting \nto construct a kind of order that no longer existed in China\u2019s \nrelationships with foreign lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By comparing the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of daily-use encyclopedias \npublished in the late-Ming dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and later, we can \nfurther explain how the creation of this knowledge in the late Ming was \nthe expression of a desire to maintain the tribute system. In the \ndaily-use encyclopedias of the Qing, although phrases such as \u201cX months \nby horse to Yingtian Prefecture\u201d have not completely disappeared, they \nhave become much less conspicuous. For instance, in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d \nsection of the 1758 Comprehensive Compendium of Myriad Treasures, Newly \nExpanded and Published (Xinjuan zengbu wanbao quanshu \u65b0\u942b\u589e\u88dc\u842c\u5bf6\u5168\u66f8), six \nbarbarian countries \u2014 namely Xifanguo, Bailiguo, Daluoguo, Shenlieguo, \nTuma, and Sheluguo 28<\/sup>—\n are described as \u201cX months by horse to Yingtian Prefecture.\u201d Such \ncountries are proportionately no less prevalent than in the Ming dynasty\n daily-use encyclopedias, but it must be noted that this 1758 edition \nmakes no mention of the countries of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> that appear in such large numbers in late-Ming encyclopedias. We see a similar state of affairs in the 1895 Comprehensive Collection of Myriad Golden Treasures, Newly<\/em>\n Expanded (Xinzeng xuanjin wanbao quanshu \u65b0\u589e\u61f8\u91d1\u842c\u5bf6\u5168\u66f8). Although the entry \nfor the Country of the Impalers, one of the forty-seven countries listed\n (and one of the very few entries in this edition drawn from the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>), contains a description of local products (\u201cwinged horses, jiaoduan<\/em>,29<\/sup>\n groundhogs, sandgrouses\u201d), the phrase \u201cX days by horse to Yingtian \nPrefecture\u201d appears in only three entries (for Xifanguo, Bachijiguo and \nBuciguo), less than seven percent of all entries. This is much lower \nthan the proportions of countries thus described in the late-Ming \ndaily-use encyclopedias, where a minimum of 12.5% (in Profound Collection of Marvelous Works from the Forest of Literati<\/em>) and a maximum of 25% (Comprehensive Compendium of Myriad Treasures in Miraculous Brocade<\/em>, Five Carts of Select Brocade<\/em>, Santai\u2019s Infinitely Useful [Guide to] How to Do Everything Correctly<\/em>) of entries are described in this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The above analysis shows how, in the process of constantly \nsupplementing, revising, and reprinting, the compilers of late-Ming \ndaily-use encyclopedias integrated the encyclopedias\u2019 discourse on \npracticality with the descriptions of \u201cbarbarians\u201d in the orthodox \ndynastic histories; linked the ancient geographic knowledge of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>\n with the concrete geographical knowledge of the Yuan, Ming and later; \nand attempted to reimagine tributary relationships just at the time when\n the tribute system had broken down. But there is another aspect of the \nlate-Ming cultural context that cannot be ignored: the introduction of \nwestern geographic knowledge in the early seventeenth century. By \nexamining the world maps in popular circulation during the late Ming, \nthe section below will inquire into how the imagined tributary \nrelationships of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias influenced China\u2019s reception of worldwide geographical \nknowledge from the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the basis of extant daily-use encyclopedias, it appears that \nlate-Ming encyclopedias were published in large numbers in the 1590s. \nSlightly earlier, in 1583, Italian missionary Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) \nentered China through Macao in order to proselytize the Christian faith,\n bringing with him Western geographical knowledge of the world. Thus, it\n is almost impossible to discuss the \u201cbarbarian\u201d tributary system \nimagined in daily-use encyclopedias without considering how the \nintroduction of western geographical knowledge might have shaped that \nimaginary. In this section, I discuss how the notion of a Sinocentric \ntribute system absorbed the shock of western geographical knowledge \nstructures. Other scholars have discussed in some detail the exchange of\n geographical knowledge between China and the West in the seventeenth \ncentury.30<\/sup>\n Here, rather, taking the historical reception of texts and their \nintertextuality as starting points, I would like to make some \npreliminary observations on the relationship between the imagined \nimperial tribute system of the late-Ming encyclopedias and Chinese maps,\n using two contemporary world maps as examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The earliest extant western world map showing the locations of the \nlegendary ancient countries listed in the Classic of Mountains and Seas \nis Ricci\u2019s \u201cComplete Map of Mountains, Seas, and Lands,\u201d published in \n1602 in Feng Yingjing\u2019s \u99ae\u61c9\u4eac (1555-1606) Overview of Monthly Ordinances \n(Yueling guangyi \u6708\u4ee4\u5ee3\u7fa9).31<\/sup>\n (This version is not to be confused with another of Ricci\u2019s world maps,\n the large, six-panel stand-alone \u201cComplete Map of All Countries on \nEarth,\u201d also printed in 1602, in Beijing.) This map, like the series of \nworld maps Ricci began to draw in 1584, conformed to the Sinocentric \nworldview in moving the first meridian so that China was slightly left \nof center on the map. It was a copy of the map of the same title that \nRicci had produced in 1600 at the request of Wu Zhongming \u5433\u4e2d\u660e, Director \nof Nanjing\u2019s Ministry of Civil Appointments, which in turn is believed \nto be a copy of a map by Ricci carved on a stele in Nanchang, Jiangxi, \nin 1596. It was reprinted, in many different versions and under \ndifferent titles, in texts and as stand-alone maps in the early \nseventeenth century. When Wang Qi and his son compiled Assembled \nIllustrations of the Three Realms<\/em> in 1607, they made a further copy of this map, placing it on the front page of the geography section.32<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n As Ricci\u2019s original \u201cComplete Map of Mountains, Seas, and Lands\u201d has \nnot survived, it is impossible to determine the changes the map went \nthrough as it was circulated and copied. What is clear, however, is that\n the contours of the 1596 and the 1602 maps are quite different. In the \n1602 \u201cComplete Map of Mountains, Seas, and Lands,\u201d the latitude and \nlongitude lines have been removed; and it depicts a Country of Dogs \ndirectly north of center. The Country of Dogs corresponds to the Feudal \nState of Dogs in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.<\/em> However, \nRicci\u2019s 1596 map and the 1602 stand-alone \u201cComplete Map of All Countries\n on Earth\u201d neither make note of the Country of Dogs, nor contain a land \nmass with corresponding contours. Common sense allows us to conclude \nthat Ricci is unlikely to have made such a striking addition to the 1600\n \u201cComplete Map of Mountains, Seas, and Lands\u201d alone. Thus, we can \nreasonably assume that the Country of Dogs was added to this map as it \ncirculated in such works as Overview of Monthly Ordinances<\/em> and Assembled Illustrations of the Three Realms<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 6: \u201cComplete Map of Mountains, Seas, and Lands,\u201d Overview of Monthly Ordinances (1602 woodblock edition)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the copy of \u201cComplete Map of Mountains, Seas, and Lands,\u201d the \nCountry of Dogs is not only directly north of center, but also very \nlarge compared to other countries\u2014it is nearly as big as China. This \nmodification to Ricci\u2019s world map is extremely interesting. If Ricci \nmoved the first meridian to conform somewhat to Sinocentric notions, \nplacing the great Ming empire very close to the center in \u201cComplete Map \nof Mountains, Seas, and Lands,\u201d perhaps the modified version of Ricci\u2019s \nmap in Overview of Monthly Observance<\/em> sent this message: China \nhas given up its position at the exact center of the world, and the \nquestion of what to put in the empty space at the center of the map had \nbecome a pressing matter up for negotiation. The fact that the creator \nof this version of Ricci\u2019s map filled the space at the center of the map\n with the State of Dogs from the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> \nsuggests that Chinese of the late Ming drew on fantastic legends from \nancient documents as ideological resources for resisting the structures \nof western geographical knowledge. We also see glimpses of this \nresistance in refutations of the geographical teachings of western \nmissionaries by the anti-Catholic scholars of the late Ming and early \nQing. Xu Dashou \u8a31\u5927\u53d7, Confucian scholar and contemporary of missionary \nGiulio Aleni (1582-1649), leveled this criticism: \u201cThere are dubious \ntales of great western nations whose people traveled great distances to \nreach our shores. If Chinese explorer Zhang Qian [fl. 2nd<\/sup> c. \nBCE] went westward, tracing the Yellow River to its source, even \nreaching the Lunar Palace on the moon, how is it that no human being has\n ever set foot in such places [as the western nations drawn on Ricci\u2019s \nmap]? How is it that the Classic of Mountains and Seas, In Search of the\n Supernatural, Record of Vassal [States] (Xian bin lu \u54b8\u8cd3\u9304, 1591), Record\n of the Western Regions (Xiyu zhi \u897f\u57df\u5fd7, 646), and Expansive Record of the\n Taiping Era have not a word to say about such places?\u201d33<\/sup> In this passage, we clearly see Xu Dashou citing the textual resources of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> and In Search of the Supernatural<\/em> to criticize western missionaries\u2019 geographical knowledge of the world.34<\/sup>\n Thus, perhaps the copy of \u201cComplete Map of Mountains, Seas, and Lands\u201d \nplaces the Country of Dogs at the center of the map not only because of \nthe conflict between western geographical knowledge of the world and the\n traditional Chinese view of the distinction between Chinese and \n\u201cbarbarians\u201d, but also because the way in which foreign knowledge was \nreplacing Chinese knowledge was a contentious subject in late-Ming world\n geographical discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 7: \u201cComplete Map of the Nine Borders, Territorial Divisions, Human Traces, and Travel Routes\u201d (1644 woodblock edition)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Below, by analyzing the intertextuality of late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias and world maps, I will explain how late-Ming Chinese drew \non the resources of daily-use encyclopedias\u2019 discussions of \u201cbarbarians\u201d\n when faced with the challenge of western geographical knowledge. In \naddition to \u201cComplete Map of Mountains, Seas, and Lands,\u201d there is \nanother map that includes countries listed in ancient texts like the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>\n in the format of a western world map: \u201cComplete Map of the Nine \nBorders, Territorial Divisions, Human Traces, and Travel Routes\u201d \n(\u201cTianxia jiubian fenye renji lucheng quantu\u201d \u5929\u4e0b\u4e5d\u908a\u5206\u91ce\u4eba\u8de1\u8def\u7a0b\u5168\u5716; hereafter \n\u201cComplete Map of the Nine Borders\u201d), printed in Nanjing by Cao Junyi \u66f9\u541b\u7fa9\n in 1644 (see Figure 7). The product of a commercial publisher, this map\n is representative of the reception of western world maps by the general\n public. It is worth noting that it indicates the locations of the \nstrange creatures of the four regions of the Classic of Mountains and \nSeas; in fact, it integrates the format of Ricci\u2019s world map with the \ncontent of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias. It includes all the latitude and longitude lines, the \nstretch of ocean between Borneo and Australia as well as that between \nBorneo and the Philippines, the Arctic Ocean, and the Antarctic Ocean of\n Ricci\u2019s world map, among other features. As Unno Kazutaka points out, \nhowever, the regions around China are a disjointed, miniaturized version\n of western world maps, and the map\u2019s latitude and longitude lines are \nmerely decorations. Unno makes special note of the \u201comission of part of \nthe textual explanations surrounding the map.\u201d35<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n However, I believe that the adornments on the periphery of the map \u2014 \nthe foreign countries on the edges and the textual explanations along \nits sides \u2014 are its most noteworthy features. Near the lower right \nperiphery of the map, from north to south, we see in order notices of \nthe Country of Women, the Country of Hairy People, the Country of the \nOne-Eyed, and the Country of Dwarves, among other countries from the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>;\n these are all countries also listed in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of \nlate-Ming daily-use encyclopedias. In the panel to the left of the map, \nwe find textual explanations of foreign countries such as, from top to \nbottom, Japan, Ryukyu, Xifanguo, Cochinchina, Champa, Java, Srivijaya, \nMalacca, Chenla, Brunei, Karakhoja, Kumul, the Almoravid empire, and \nLaos, as well as the Country of Red Barbarians, the Country of Erfutuo, \nthe Country of Kezhi, Chola, the Country of Black People, Tibet, \nChaoluguoe, and so on.36<\/sup>\n Not only do these countries appear in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of \ndaily-use encyclopedias, more importantly, the order in which they \nappear is nearly identical to that of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d entries of the \n1614 woodblock edition Combined Edition of the Five Carts [of Knowledge]\n and the Comprehensive Collection of Myriad Treasures, Newly Cut (Xinke \nsouluo wuche hebing wanbao quanshu \u65b0\u523b\u641c\u7f85\u4e94\u8eca\u5408\u4f75\u842c\u5bf6\u5168\u66f8, 1614). The text in the \npanel beneath the map is the \u201cTravel Routes of the Two Capitals, \nThirteen Provinces, Prefectures and Counties\u201d invariably included in \nlate-Ming daily-use encyclopedias. Of course, the route guide included \nin the map might have originated from a separate work not included in \nthe encyclopedia, but since it is certain that Cao Junyi did make use of\n the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of daily-use encyclopedias when creating his \nmap, it is very likely that the text on \u201cbarbarian\u201d countries and travel\n routes at the edges of \u201cComplete Map of the Nine Borders\u201d is drawn \nentirely from contemporarily popular daily-use encyclopedias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These country names and worldwide travel routes are not mere \nperipheral adornments, but a framework for viewers in both a concrete \npictorial and an abstract sense. Given that daily-use encyclopedias were\n in wide circulation during the late-Ming dynasty, people could not have\n failed to notice, when consulting this world map \u2014 which appeared on \nthe surface to be very different from traditional maps that highlighted \nthe distinction between Chinese and \u201cbarbarians\u201d \u2014 that the map\u2019s \nperiphery contained familiar travel information and content from the \ndaily-use encyclopedias. Indeed, it is likely that viewers of the \n\u201cComplete Map of the Nine Borders\u201d saw this world map, with its latitude\n and longitude lines, as a graphic representation of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d \nsections of daily-use encyclopedias; and the travel route information as\n guides that the overseas \u201cbarbarians\u201d of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> could follow to reach China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But here this information \u2014 explaining how long it would take to get \nto China from various foreign lands \u2014 signifies a vision different from \nthe imagined imperial tribute missions in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of \nlate-Ming daily-use encyclopedias. In the context of Ricci\u2019s world map, \nthe suggestion in \u201cComplete Map of the Nine Borders\u201d that the overseas \n\u201cbarbarians\u201d of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> could reach China by following its travel route guides is significant in that it grants the nonhuman countries of the Classic<\/em>\n the same informational authority as the western countries drawn from \nRicci\u2019s map. Thus, we must reexamine Huang Shijian\u2019s view that the world\n maps of the Ming and Qing, including Cao Junyi\u2019s \u201cComplete Map of the \nNine Borders,\u201d incorporate Ricci\u2019s map into a vision of Sinocentric \nunification that follows a firmly traditional worldview.37<\/sup>\n In fact, the above analysis of Cao\u2019s map demonstrates that the \nframework by which it arranged and incorporated western geographical \nknowledge is not merely an abstract, general \u201cvision of Sinocentric \nunification,\u201d but also a framework for discussing the geography of China\n and foreign lands unique to late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, as late as the closing years of the Qing dynasty, world maps\n still had not fully supplanted the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of daily-use \nencyclopedias as the primary means of representing traditional Chinese \nknowledge of foreign lands. This has a great deal to do with the ways in\n which traditional Chinese knowledge of foreign lands was expressed. \nLate-Ming daily-use encyclopedias mainly communicate ancient \ngeographical knowledge of foreign lands in narrative rather than \ncartographic form. Their narratives contain no quantifiable information \non the positions of or distances between \u201cbarbarian\u201d countries, their \nborders or their territories. These countries are described in relative \nrather than absolute terms. Between these countries, therefore, there \nare many unknowns and gray areas, and much room for extrapolation. When \nthe people of the late Ming were forced to face the shock of western \ngeographical knowledge, and it became necessary to reinterpret and \nresituate ancient geographical knowledge, the encyclopedias\u2019 narratives \nfilled in the gray areas, giving ancient knowledge a place and allowing \nit to peacefully coexist with concrete geographical information. For \ninstance, a mythical country can be described as three years by horse to\n Yingtian Prefecture, and this will never conflict or clash with any \nother geographical description. However, such spaces cannot be found on \nwestern world maps drawn by precisely calculating the proportions of all\n land masses and seas. When the earth changes from a vast, unending \nplane with infinitely distant limits to a sphere where a long journey \ninevitably returns one to one\u2019s starting point, the gray areas where the\n strange creatures of the ancient Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>\n were said to dwell are eliminated. When the earth becomes a sphere, the\n space in which the \u201cbarbarians\u201d of ancient treatises lived is flattened\n out. In this sense, rather than bringing knowledge of foreigners (or \n\u201cbarbarians\u201d) to China, the introduction of western world geographical \nknowledge to China in the late-sixteenth century shrunk the space in \nwhich \u201cbarbarians\u201d could exist. Through both narrative and pictorial \nmeans, however, late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias continued to present \nvivid images of numerous \u201cbarbarian\u201d states traveling to the capital to \ngive tribute across limitless space and limitless time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This paper began by comparing various versions of daily-use \nencyclopedias, examining mainly the following three questions: How did \nMing dynasty daily-use encyclopedias assimilate and transform the \nframework by which official Song dynasty encyclopedias categorized \nknowledge of barbarians? What was the social and cultural significance \nof this transformation? Secondly, from what perspective should we \nunderstand the \u201cdaily usefulness\u201d of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of \nlate-Ming daily-use encyclopedias? And finally, what role did the images\n of foreign lands found in late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias play in the\n process of China\u2019s reception of western geographical knowledge? By \nanswering these three questions, this paper has sought to explain how \nthe discussions of foreign lands in the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of the \nencyclopedias provide clues to comprehending the way the people of the \nlate Ming imagined the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To begin with, the editors of Yuan-dynasty daily-use encyclopedias \norganized knowledge of foreign lands based on a two-dimensional \ndistinction between fact and legend; slightly later editions adopted a \nmulti-level organizational approach, taking concrete geographical \nknowledge as a starting point and gradually including the nonhuman \ncountries of the Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em>, resulting in an\n imagination of foreign lands in which various beings and social strata \nmingled. These methods of compilation drew boundaries in order to impose\n a sense of order on discussions of foreign lands. Compared to these \nYuan dynasty daily-use encyclopedias, the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of \nlate-Ming daily-use encyclopedias seem jumbled and boundary-free. \nHowever, these later encyclopedias in fact emphasize that distant, \nmystical, unknowable foreign lands can be reached by certain \ntransportation methods, an approach that makes their relationship to \nChina concrete and (seemingly) experiential, overturning in a meticulous\n and innovative fashion the means by which past daily-use encyclopedias \nsought to understand foreign peoples. Through the processes of continual\n supplementation, revision, and reprinting, the compilers integrated the\n practical discussions of earlier daily-use encyclopedias with the \nwritings on barbarians in the orthodox dynastic histories. They thereby \nbroke down the firm cultural\/textual boundaries of past daily-use \nencyclopedias and built a new relationship between ancient geographical \nknowledge like that of Classic of Mountains and Seas<\/em> and the \nconcrete geographical knowledge of the Yuan and Ming, in an attempt to \nreimagine tributary relationships at the very time the tribute system \nwas breaking down. Such reimagining of the tribute system can also be \nunderstood as an alternate means of resisting the framework of western \nworld geographical knowledge. The late-Ming appropriation and \ntransformation of Ricci\u2019s world map was born of the need, given the \nopportunities that the wide circulation of the encyclopedias provided \nfor instruction of the public, to decide how to situate the new \nknowledge of foreign lands; equally important, however, was the need to \nreproduce, in both form and content, the imagination of foreign lands \nfound in late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias. Thus, opposition to western \ngeographical knowledge was expressed not only in daily-use \nencyclopedias, but also in world maps purportedly representing western \ngeographical knowledge but shaped by its material expression in the \nencyclopedias. This essay has attempted to break free from the \ntwo-dimensional dichotomy between concrete geographical information and \nimaginary or fabricated information employed by past scholars in \ndiscussing the \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming daily-use \nencyclopedias; and to understand the discourse on foreign lands in these\n works as the result of both their effort to make knowledge as practical\n as possible and their attempts to reimagine the tributary system in the\n face of the breakdown of that system and the challenge posed by western\n geographical knowledge in the late Ming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, when we realize that, by constantly making revisions and \nissuing new editions, late-Ming daily-use encyclopedias were attempting \nto rebuild and maintain tributary relationships, it becomes indisputably\n necessary to reexamine the validity of the terms \u201cdaily-use \nencyclopedia\u201d and \u201cdaily-use\u201d in interpreting the late-Ming wanbao quanshu<\/em>\n encyclopedias. By \u201cdaily-use,\u201d Sakai Tadao is referring to concept of \n\u201cpractical everyday lifestyle guidance,\u201d and needless to say, the \n\u201cBarbarians\u201d sections certainly cannot be understood as fulfilling this \nconcept. Even if we redefine \u201cdaily-usefulness\u201d as related to everyday \npracticality, based on the discussion above, it obviously cannot fully \nencompass the notion of cultural governance expressed in the \n\u201cBarbarians\u201d sections of late-Ming encyclopedias. From the Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs<\/em> editions to the wanbao quanshu<\/em>,\n the history of the formation of \u201cBarbarians\u201d sections in fact reflects \nthe process by which encyclopedia compilers redefined existing \ncategories of information in reaction to crises in practical governance \nand knowledge systems. In this sense, the editors of the \u201cBarbarians\u201d \nsections of these encyclopedias not only undertook practical everyday \ndiscussions, they also displayed the sensitivity needed to gain a new \nunderstanding of a changing world and the timeliness required to fulfill\n this need by adjusting existing knowledge structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFrom Expansive Record of the Forest of Affairs to the Comprehensive Compendium of Myriad Treasures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/linguafranca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/image2-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/linguafranca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/image3-2.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/linguafranca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/image4-1.png\")
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nA Form of Imagined Imperial Tribute<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/linguafranca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/image5-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/linguafranca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/image6-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nDaily-use Encyclopedias Encounter World Maps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/linguafranca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/image7-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/linguafranca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/image8-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nConclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n