Chapter 5 Chapter Two Local Chronicles of China

It is difficult to count exactly how many local chronicles have been compiled in the past dynasties in China. The "Joint Catalog of Chinese Local Chronicles" published in 1985 recorded the collections of 190 large libraries in my country, including 8,264 provincial, city, prefecture, prefecture, county, and township annals compiled before 1949.Among them, 26 species in Tianjin, 32 species in Ningxia, 39 species in Qinghai, 44 species in Tibet, 48 species in Inner Mongolia, 49 species in Taiwan, 50 species in Hainan, 55 species in Beijing, 65 species in Heilongjiang, 81 species in Xinjiang, 93 species in Jilin, 130 species in Liaoning, Guizhou , 139 species in Shanghai, 198 species in Gansu, 221 species in Guangxi, 287 species in Yunnan, 315 species in Fujian, 332 species in Hubei, 379 species in Anhui, 395 species in Guangdong, 401 species in each of Shaanxi and Hunan, 431 species in Shanxi, 477 species in Jiangxi, Henan 528 species, 540 species in Jiangsu, 541 species in Shandong, 567 species in Hebei, 590 species in Zhejiang, and 671 species in Sichuan.

This number is by no means the entirety of the existing local chronicles.First of all, it does not include the national general chronicles and various monographs; second, there are still many local chronicles kept in other libraries or in the hands of individuals.In recent years, in the process of compiling new local chronicles, many local chronicles have been discovered one after another that are not recorded in the "Joint Catalog".For example, in Laifeng County, Hubei Province, a chieftain chronicle of the early Qing Dynasty was found in Xiaogan's "Xiangshi Family Tree"——"(Kangxi) Maodong Sizhi" in six volumes.Maodongsi is a very small chieftain, "the land is no more than a projectile, and the number of registered households is no more than a few dozen", and the residents are all Tujia.The native official surname Xiang has been passed down for 13 generations from the early Ming Dynasty to the thirteenth year of Yongzheng (AD 1735).This chronicle was completed during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, with complete records. It is a rare material for studying the ancient Tusi system and Tujia history.It was never published.During the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, when the descendants of the Xiang family compiled the genealogy, they used it as an appendix and copied several sets by hand before they were preserved.Another example is the 30 volumes of "(Guangxu) Tongzi County Chronicles" in Guizhou. Its manuscripts have been collected by the descendants of the editor Zhao Yiping.Shanghai Bookstore photocopied and published three rare Longyou local chronicles, all of which were manuscripts or manuscripts, which were found in Liu Ziya's private collection in Hangzhou.It is found that there are more chronicles in the period of the Republic of China, such as the manuscript of "(Republic of China) Yuanling County Chronicles" completed in 1931 in the collection of Hunan Academy of Social Sciences; the manuscript of "(Republic of China) Jiangchuan County Chronicles" completed in 1934 in the collection of Yunnan Jiangchuan County Library Ben and so on.According to statistics, there are more than 500 species found in this category.In addition, the collections in Taiwan are compiled based on the materials published in 1960, which are not complete, and also do not include private collections.Collections in Hong Kong are not counted.

For local chronicles scattered abroad, the "Union Catalog" only records a very small number of known rare copies.There is no exact statistics on how many local chronicles of China are preserved in all parts of the world. Chinese local chronicles have already gone to the world.Especially after the Opium War, the imperialist powers paid great attention to the study of China and paid special attention to the collection of Chinese local documents in order to meet the needs of their policy of aggression against China.They obtained a large number of local chronicles from China through scholars, businessmen, missionaries, diplomats, or acquisition or plunder.Now, almost all the important libraries of major countries in the world have Chinese local annals, some of which are rare editions, but you can’t see them in its hometown China.

Japan has had close cultural exchanges with China since ancient times, and Chinese classics have flowed into Japan through various channels, with a history of more than 1,000 years.According to various catalog investigations, from 1694 to 1807 AD, there were as many as 800 Chinese government, prefecture, and county annals that were handed down to Japan, involving 18 provinces.Since modern times, with the goal of invading China, Japan has been more diligent in collecting Chinese local chronicles.Some famous bibliophiles in our country, such as Song Lou of Lushi (bibi) in Zhejiang, and Haiyuange of Yangshi in Liaocheng, Shandong, have sold to Japan one after another.The old China suffered from internal and external troubles, political corruption, weak country and poor people, unable to protect its own cultural treasures.Fu Zhenlun, a Chinese local chronicler, recalled sadly that when the Japanese bought ancient and modern local chronicles at Beijing Liulichang Bookstore, "it was not based on the value of the book, but it was stipulated that the accumulated book was as high as one walking stick and one yuan." There are thousands of local chronicles, surpassing other countries in both quantity and quality.According to the "Catalogue of Existing Ming Dynasty Local Chronicles in Japan" compiled by Yukio Yamane (1971 Supplement), there are more than 300 Ming Dynasty local chronicles collected in 12 libraries in Japan alone, 57 of which have been lost in China.

The acquisition of Chinese ancient books by the United States began around the middle of the 19th century. After 1918, the U.S. Library of Congress sent personnel to various provinces in China to purchase local chronicles. For example, in 1933, it bought more than 100 kinds of Shandong chronicles collected by Gao Weihan, a native of Shandong, in 20 years.Now, Chinese local chronicles are one of the special collections of the Eastern Department of the Library of Congress. There are more than 2,900 kinds in 1942, and the current number has reached about 4,000.The Harvard-Yenching Library of Harvard-Yenching University has more than 3,500 kinds of Chinese local chronicles.Some other famous universities in the United States also have Chinese local chronicles to varying degrees.In the world, apart from China itself, the number of Chinese local annals in the United States is second only to Japan.

Ningbo Tianyi Pavilion is famous for its collection of local chronicles of the Ming Dynasty.During the Opium War, the British army invaded Ningbo, broke into Tianyi Pavilion, checked the topography of Ningbo area from local chronicles, and looted dozens of local chronicles and geographical books such as "Da Ming Yitong Zhi". In 1900, a scripture cave was discovered in the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, and a large number of ancient manuscripts thousands of years ago were rediscovered. This major discovery made the whole world admire.Since then, the Englishman Stein, the Frenchman Pelliot, etc. have heard the news and stole a large number of high-quality treasures in Dunhuang, including more than a dozen fragments of illustrated classics and topographical manuscripts from the Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties.Most of these rare treasures are now preserved in the British Museum in London and the French National Library in Paris.According to the "Catalogue of Chinese Local Chronicles Collected in European Libraries" published in Paris in 1957, there are 1,434 Chinese local chronicles in 25 book collection units in seven European countries, including Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden.Among them, the National Library of France has the largest collection.

If all these are added together, there are about 10,000 kinds of Chinese local annals in existence.It is estimated that the total number of existing Chinese ancient books is 80,000 to 100,000, that is to say, local chronicles account for 1/10 of Chinese ancient books.