Chapter 40 Section 6: Works on Place Names in the Song Dynasty and Discussion on Place Names

The invention of movable type printing and the prosperity of the paper industry provided the material basis for the cultural prosperity of the Song Dynasty.In the writings of Song people, local chronicles account for a large proportion.Whether it is the national general annals or local state and county annals, they all surpass previous generations.As far as the general annals are concerned, the more famous ones are "Taiping Huanyu Ji" by the music history of the Northern Song Dynasty, "Yuanfeng Jiuyu Zhi" by Wang Cun, "Yudi Guangji" by Ouyang Min, and "Yudi Jisheng" by Wang Xiangzhi of the Southern Song Dynasty. ", Zhu Mu's "Fangyu Shenglan", etc. Among them, Le Shi's works are as long as 200 volumes, and the number of place names recorded is beyond comparison with other works.The content recorded in this book not only includes the Central Plains and border areas, but also goes as far as today's India, Iran, Saudi Arabia and even farther places.The book also adds some biographies, etc., the content is quite complicated.But it also includes some lost texts in some ancient topography of the Tang Dynasty or even earlier, which is very valuable.It is a pity that eight volumes of this book were lost during the circulation process. Yang Shoujing, a historical geographer in the ninth year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (AD 1883), compiled it from the fragments of the Song engraving "Taiping Huanyu Ji" in the official library of Fengshan, Japan. The five and a half volumes that have been lost have not been completed in full.Of course, this book is characterized by a large number of place names, but the author's research on place names is relatively superficial, and there are even many corruptions.For example, Haizhou bet on Donghai County in the Northern Song Dynasty. Donghai County originally had a false name, and there was no county division in the Song Dynasty, but music history mixed this false name with Donghai County in the Han Dynasty.The county government of Donghai in the Han Dynasty was Tan (tan Tan), which is near Tancheng County, Shandong Province today. Tan County in the Sui Dynasty belonged to Xiapi (pi batch) County, and the east of Xiapi County was Donghai County (the county government was Qushan, which is now in Lianyungang City the old Haizhou City).In the Tang Dynasty, Tan County was abolished, and the land belonged to Sizhou. Donghai County in the east was renamed Haizhou, with Qushan as the state government.In the Northern Song Dynasty, the former Tan County belonged to Jingdong East Road, and Haizhou, which was governed by Qushan Mountain, belonged to Huainan East Road. , He Wuji, Xu Mian) all moved their native places to Haizhou, which is unavoidable.

Another person who contributed to the work of place names was Wang Yinglin in the late Southern Song Dynasty. He once wrote the book "Tong Jian Geography Research", which is a 200-volume masterpiece, but unfortunately the book has been lost.Fortunately, another masterpiece "Tong Jian Geography Tong Shi" has been preserved. Although there are only 14 short volumes, the words are meticulous and thought-provoking after reading.These 14 volumes include the general narration of the prefectures of the past dynasties, the examination of the cities of the past dynasties, the examination of the mountains and rivers of the ten dynasties (recorded from the 23rd year of King Weilie of Zhou to the six years of Zhou Xiande), the study of the mountains and rivers of the Zhou Dynasty and the Seven Kingdoms (according to the The Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period), the Three Kingdoms and Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, Chen and other situations; the four towns in Hexi;At the back of the book is his own postscript, which was later moved to the front of the book as a preface.In this preface, he analyzes some experience and lessons learned by predecessors in researching place names, and it is an important reference material for exploring historical place names.

"History of Song Geography", "History of Liao Geography", "History of Jin Geography" and the local chronicles that appeared continuously in the Song Dynasty not only recorded a large number of place names, but also recorded the origin of place names, the evolution of place names, and the migration of place names. All these phenomena have been explored beneficially, which provided a wealth of information for the later study of place names in our country.Cheng Dachang's "Geographic Map of Yugong Mountains and Rivers" and the ancient stone inscriptions "Huayi Map" and "Yuji Map" not only intuitively reflect the spatial distribution of the main place names in China in each period, but also show the historical track of the evolution of place names , is an important achievement in the study of place names in the Song Dynasty.

"Song History · Foreign Biography", "Song History · Barbarian Biography", "Liao History · Foreign Records", "Jin History · Foreign Biography" and so on show the ethnic minority areas in Jilizhou and counties in the Song Dynasty on a broader geographical background. At the same time, it also recorded many place names of more than 30 surrounding countries and regions, and also accumulated information for exploring the place names at that time.In addition, the itineraries of envoys from the Song to Liao and the Song and Jin Dynasties also recorded many important place names along the traffic roads between the Song and Liao Dynasties and the Song and Jin Dynasties, which have also become important reference materials for exploring historical place names.

The land route leading to the west in the Song Dynasty was affected to a certain extent due to the interference of Xixia.But sea traffic is more prosperous than in the past.Quanzhou on Fujian Road has become a famous port leading to overseas, and many foreign businessmen live here.They trafficked their own goods to China by sea, and at the same time purchased goods from China and sold them abroad, thus promoting economic and cultural exchanges between China and other countries in the Song Dynasty. Zhao Rushi [Kuo Kuo] who once served in Quanzhou wrote a book "Zhu Fan Zhi", and Zhou Qufei, who was an official in Guilin earlier than him, wrote a book "Ling Wai Da Dai Answer", all based on and related people The conversations recorded in the book, the two are quite the same or similar.The scope of its records reaches as far as today's Southwest Asia, East Africa, North Africa and other coastal areas.The place names mentioned are very different from today.The Andu city of the Great Qin State mentioned in their books is Antakya on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean in central Turkey today.The state of the Kunlun layer refers to the coast of East Africa in the area of ​​today's Zanzibar.Mulanpi is the old translated name of Maghreb, which refers to the extreme west of Arabia.They call the ostrich the camel crane and the zebra the tricolor mule.