Appendix 3 Biography of Xu Xiake
by Qian Qianyi (1582–1664)
Xu Xiake, whose given name was Hongzu, was a native of Wucheng Village near Jiangyin. His great-grandfather Xu Jing was a successful provincial examination candidate at the same time as Tang Yin, although their names were subsequently removed from the list of graduates. On one occasion, Tang paid off a gambling debt of three thousand taels by giving Xu Jing a collection of paintings by Ni Zan (nickname Yunlin; 1301–74).1 The original artworks are still in the family.
From a young age, Xiake developed a reputation in the village for his remarkably impassioned nature and obsession with landscape. He exerted great effort in tilling the fields and attending to his mother’s needs, spending money to cover the cost of the local corvée labor. Trapped like a bird crashing into the sides of its cage, his every thought was of going away.
When he was thirty, his mother sent him off on his travels. His usual pattern consisted of traveling over spring, summer, and autumn before returning home in wintertime to visit his elderly relatives. The beautiful scenery of the southeast, such as East and West Dongting Lake, Yangxian, Jingkou, Jinling, Wuxing, and Wulin, Mount Jing [Jingshan] and Tianmu Mountains in western Zhejiang, the Five Waterfalls, Mount Siming, Mount Tiantai, and Mount Yandang in eastern Zhejiang, and Mount Putuo in the southern ocean, all became as familiar to him as his kitchen table or the clothes on his back. Xiake went to some places twice or thrice and others several times; there was nowhere he went to only once.
Traveling with a servant, or sometimes with a monk, equipped with just a walking stick and a cloth bundle, there was no need to carry a traveling bag or bundle up food supplies. He could endure hunger for several days, eating his fill whenever he found food. He could walk for
several hundred li. Whether he was ascending sheer cliffs, braving bamboo thickets, scrambling up and down, or hanging over precipices on a rope, he was as nimble as a gibbon and as sturdy as an ox. He used towering crags for his bed, streams, and gullies for refreshment and bathing. Due to his finding companionship with mountain demons, trolls, apes, and bigfoots, he achieved a blissful state of mental transcendence. This affected his ability to speak until he discussed the makeup of the mountains and distinguished water sources or investigated any geographical terrain. Then, his mind suddenly became clear again. He was not one who habitually produced ornate writing. After traveling for several hundred li, he would burn pine by a tumbledown wall or withered tree, feeding the flames as he scribbled down his diary, which was a match for any great work of writing or superior work of art, something which even the greatest writers could not have improved upon.
On his return from the Tiantai and Yandang Mountains, he called on Chen Hanhui at Lesser Cold Mountain. Chen asked him: “Have you ever climbed to the summit of Mount Yandang?” Xiake promised to go and, by the next morning, was nowhere to be seen. Ten days had passed before his return, upon which he said: “Setting off on a side path, I clambered up some vines to Dragon Splash Pool. After thirty li, I came to a tarn where geese had built their homes. I ascended for over ten more li and found the round hut of the monks White Cloud and Beyond the Clouds from the Zhengde reign still there. After ascending another twenty li, I was buffeted by fierce winds at the summit, where a herd of several hundred deer surrounded me as I slept. I did not come down till I had spent three nights there.” He was the kind of person who would vie with others, risking his life to seek out the unusual and pursue great sights.
Later trips saw him reach Mount Huang, Mount Baiyue, Mount Jiuhua, and Mount Lu. In Fujian, he climbed Mount Wuyi and traversed Nine Carp Lake. In Chu, he visited Mount Wudang. He traveled in the northern regions of Qi, Lu, Yan, Ji, Mount Song, and the Luo River [Luoshui]. When he reached Green Stalk Mesa on his descent from Mount Hua, a sinking feeling in his heart compelled him to return home, where he found his mother, overcome by serious illness, biting her fingernails in the expectation of seeing him.2
Following her death and the three years of mourning, his appetite for traveling huge distances returned greater than ever. After visiting Huang Daozhou in Fujian, he covered the great sights of the province’s mountains, which are quite unfamiliar to the locals. He climbed Mount Luofu and visited Cao Stream before returning and seeking out Huang Daozhou again in Yunyang. Going to and from for ten thousand li was a mere stroll down the road for such a seasoned traveler. From the Zhongnan Mountains, he headed south for Mount Emei, collecting herbs with the locals and resting in caves without hot food for eight days at night. On arriving at Mount Emei, he encountered She Chongming’s rebellious soldiers and had to turn back.3 Traveling alone with just a cauldron, he visited Mount Heng beyond the northern frontier and all the strategic passes of the nine border regions.4 On his return, he came to see me in the mountains. He talked excitedly about traveling in all four seasons, going to the four outermost regions of the country, the Nine Regions and the Nine Precincts [Jiufu], distinguishing their main features as clearly as the back of his hand.5 He said: “The bygone records of the stars above and the lands below are based on mistaken assumptions. From the earliest records, the passage of the Yellow River and the Changjiang and the delineation of the mountains and rivers were confined to the Central Plains. I wish to travel to the oceans beyond Mount Kunlun and overseas and reach the deserts’ very end before I return.” We were traveling on a boat as small as a leaf and were soaked in a thunderstorm. I invited him to disembark, but he refused, saying: “If a mountain spring were to burst forth and crash against my back suddenly, I would be truly happy.”
On bingzi day of the ninth month (11 October 1636), Xu left his home and headed west. The monk Tranquil Hearing wanted to worship Mahākāśyapa on Mount Chicken Foot and asked to accompany him. During an encounter with bandits on the Xiang River, Tranquil Hearing was injured and later passed away. Xu encased his bones and took them along with him as he crossed Lake Dongting and ascended Mount Heng, where he climbed all seventy-two peaks.6
He ascended Mount Emei again, then headed north to the Min Mountains, going as far as Songpan. Heading south again, he traversed the Great Crossing River, passed through Lizhou and Yazhou, and climbed Mount Wawu and Mount Shaijing.7 Xu furthermore investigated the Gold Dust River, going as far as the border regions among the yaks, before heading south to cross the Mekong River, then north to investigate the Pan River, crossing almost all of the southwestern lands of the Yi people as well as most of the sights of Guizhou and Yunnan.
After passing through Lijiang, he rested a while at Mount Diancang and at Mount Chicken Foot, where, by his long-standing desire, he buried the bones of Tranquil Hearing in a Buddhist ceremony in honor of Mahākāśyapa. From Mount Chicken Foot, he went west several thousand li from Rock Gate Pass to Mount Kunlun and as far as Star Constellations Lake, going thirty-four thousand three hundred li beyond the Central Plains. Halfway up a mountain, with the wind blowing so hard his clothes almost flew off, a golden pagoda appeared in the distance. Another few thousand li took him to Tibet, where he visited the Precious Jewel Dharma King. Apart from the Singing Sands Mountain, these places were all foreign lands, such as Milu and A’nou. The distances he covered are unfathomable. Chronicles of the Western Regions reports how the piles of bones lying beneath men and their horses were testimony to the difficulty of traveling through the desert, with no way of avoiding the devilishly hot winds. The many demons that tormented Master Xuanzang are all recorded in his biography. In contrast, the short time that Xiake spent on his travels appears like a stroll in the park.
On returning to the foot of Mount Emei, he entrusted the gnarled roots of the strange trees he had found on his travels to merchants to carry back home and sent me a copy of his Tracing the Jiang Upstream to Unravel Its Source. In this text, he states that the “Tribute to Yu” chapter is incorrect in declaring: “[Yu] cleared a passage through the Jiang in the Min Mountains.” Yu’s clearing of the river through the Min Mountains was related to flooding in China and has nothing to do with the source of the Changjiang.
There are five provinces whose rivers feed into the Yellow River and eleven that feed into the Changjiang. When calculating water volume, there is twice as much water flowing through the Changjiang as in the Yellow River. Note: the source of the Yellow River lies north of Mount Kunlun, while the Changjiang emerges from south of Mount Kunlun. It is not the case that the Yellow River’s source is near while the source of the Changjiang is farther away.
Xu also distinguished between the overall configuration of the Three Dragons: the Northern Dragon straddles the Yellow River to the north; the Southern Dragon embraces the Changjiang to the south; the Central Dragon forms a boundary between them and is particularly short. Just one section of the Northern Dragon extends south of the Middle Kingdom. Only the Southern Dragon continues to wind majestically into the heart of the country. Also originating at Mount Kunlun, it joins the Gold Dust River to head south, circling Lake Dianchi before reaching the Five Ranges.8 When the mountain ranges are long, then the water sources are also long, which is why the Changjiang is greater than the Yellow River. The many thousands of words that make up Xu Xiake’s work revise Sang Qin’s The Waterways Treatise, as well as those areas not covered by Li Daoyuan’s Commentary on the Waterways Treatise, and the work of various Confucian scholars of the Han and Song dynasties on the “Tribute to Yu.” I have picked out the general gist of his work above.
When Xiake returned to southern Yunnan, his feet were too sore for him to travel, so he spent three months revising the Mount Chicken Foot Gazetteer. Governor Mu of Lijiang provided food and a bamboo sedan chair to help him return home. Xiake, who was in great pain, said to those who asked after him:
Zhang Qian opened up new areas but never saw Mount Kunlun. Xuanzang of the Tang dynasty and Yelü Chucai (1189–1243) of the Yuan dynasty could only travel west because they were carrying the commands of their rulers. With my coarse clothes, I have been to the end of the Yellow River and the western deserts with a bamboo walking stick and a pair of sandals. I have climbed Mount Kunlun and traveled throughout the western regions, establishing a reputation in distant countries. I shall not die unhappy if I can join this trio to make a quartet.
I met Xiake through Liu Lüding from Zhangzhou. Lüding said to me:
When Xiake returned from the west, he was breathing with great difficulty. When he heard how Huang Daozhou had been imprisoned by imperial edict, he dispatched his eldest son on the arduous journey to visit him. Returning three months later, he gave a complete account of Huang’s arrest. Xiake leaned on his bed and gave a great sigh. He ate no more and passed away.
That is the sort of person he was.
Mr. Wuxia9 remarks:
In former times, Liu Gongquan (778–865) recorded the matter of the Three Peaks, saying there was a certain Wang Xuanchong who visited a Buddhist monk Righteous Sea (Yihai) at South Slope [Nanpo] to climb Lotus Blossom Peak.10 On that day, he calculated the circumference as fifty thousand fathoms and reckoned it to be a ten-day journey. When he reached the top, he lit a beacon by way of proof. Righteous Sea, as arranged, lodged at Peach Grove [Taolin]. At dawn, the mountains were clear and bright. He stood stock still for some time as white smoke rose from the top of the three peaks. When Xuanchong arrived after twenty days, he took several petals of fallen leaves from the Jade Well and a few small fragments from the iron boat at the lake- side to Righteous Sea and headed off, picking up his satchel. When Xuanchong arrived, Righteous Sea told him: “This mountain is as if whittled; if you do not ride the winds and soar on the clouds, there is no way of going there.” Xuanchong retorted: “You should not say that some places cannot be reached; it is just that you do not have the ambition to go there.” Xiake did not consider himself the equal of Zhang Qian and the others or to be compared to Xuanchong. However, as an extraordinary master of the Three Clarities (Sanqing), with whom should he be compared?
The text of Xiake’s travel diary is big enough to cover a table. I asked his second cousin Zhongzhao to keep and collate the book since it is the greatest travel diary ever written. Xiake was fifty-six when he died.11 He returned from his western journey in the sixth lunar month of 1640 and died in the first lunar month of 1641. He is buried at Mawan in Jiangyin. This is what Lüding told me.
—Translated by Julian Ward
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Source: Xu Xiake zhuan (YJJZ, 2:1439–41; YJ, 1191–95).
1 The renowned painter Tang Yin befriended Xu Jing while studying for the imperial exams. After Xu Jing attempted to bribe the servant of one of the chief examiners, both men were jailed. For additional details, see the introduction.
2 “Biting her fingernails” alludes to the story “Zengzi’s Filial Devotion Stretches Over Ten Thousand Li” (Zhengzi xiaogan wanli), preserved in the collection In Search of the Supernatural (Soushen ji). After returning home from a journey to the south, his mother remarked: “I missed you, so I was biting my nails.”
3 On She Chongming’s rebellion in Sichuan, see part 2, note 5, page 354.
4 The Mount Heng mentioned here is the Sacred Mountain in the North. The nine border regions, set up in the Hongzhi reign (1488–1506), stretch from Liaodong in the east to Gansu in the west.
5 The four seasons, or seasonal axes, are the summer and winter solstices, and the two transitions from winter to spring and summer to autumn. As recorded in the “Tribute to Yu” chapter of the Documents Canon, the Nine Regions comprised the territory of China when Yu the Great tamed the floods in remote antiquity. Details are provided in Wilkinson, Chinese History, 245. The Nine Precincts are the eight points of the compass, with an added middle precinct in the center.
6 That is Mount Heng, the Sacred Mountain in the South.
7 Lizhou, Yazhou, Mount Wawu, and Mount Shaijing are all in Sichuan.
8 The Five Ranges separate the provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi from southern China.
9 Mr. Wuxia refers to Qian Qianyi.
10 Liu Gongquan was a renowned Tang dynasty calligrapher.
11 In fact, Xu Xiake was fifty-five sui, or fifty-four years old by Western reckoning, when he died. For details, see appendix 2, note 51, page 485.