T Yu Qiuwei · Mountain Residency Notes

Author: Yu Qiuyu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-05-01
Features: The writing of Mountain Residences Notes began in 1992 and was completed in 1994, lasting over two years. To write this book, I resigned from my administrative position at the academy and stopped working, so these two-plus years were very pure, almost entirely devoted to the project. Spending so much time to produce only eleven articles seems incredibly inefficient, but my writing was intertwined with exploration. Many places I wrote about required multiple visits, making it difficult to move quickly. I remember one time, to verify two characters on a couplet at a historical site in Hainan Island, I sent several inquiries but received no accurate answers, so I had to visit again. This approach would seem absurd if judged by economic gain or loss, but writing has its own metrics, what is called "knowing gain and loss in one's heart." In the overall plan, this book is the second stage of my direct experiential exploration of Chinese civilization. The first stage of the record is Cultural Hard Travel, where the "I" in that book carries the confusion of life, seeking out cultural relics and sites, then sharing my astonishment and emotions with readers. But after completing the journey and writing, I realized there were still many overarching, unresolved issues beyond specific relics that needed further exploration, such as—
the mutual obsession and intertwined fate between political ambitions and cultural complexes;
the exile, destruction, and revival of cultural souls;
the confrontation and near-miss between commercial civilization and Chinese culture;
the achievements left by the millennium-old imperial examination system for both social history and collective character;
the inevitable extinction and the necessity of commemoration of rare personalities in Chinese culture;
the omnipresence and difficulty of distinguishing between the important boundary of "gentlemen and petty men."
His life was full of hardships he brought upon himself. His ancestors had already laid a very complete Chinese realm for him. At the age of eight, he ascended the throne, and at fourteen, he began ruling personally. As a young child, he could have simply enjoyed the fruits of his ancestors' labor. But what could he possibly do in front of such vast territory and such a prosperous momentum? His immature eyes, however, were filled with doubts, fixated on two behemoths—one was the powerful minister of state, Ao Ba, and the other was Wu Sangui, who claimed credit for leading the Qing army into the Central Plains as a traitor and had been amassing power in the south. To be fair, for such politically significant forces closely tied to his ancestors and father, even a respected and formidable ruler might hesitate to take decisive action, but Kangxi challenged them—and himself. At the age of sixteen, he swiftly eliminated the Ao Ba faction, and at twenty, he began waging war against Wu Sangui, achieving a decisive victory after eight years of battle. He essentially rebuilt the kingdom he had inherited, transforming himself from an heir into an entrepreneur. He matured, yet he still often rode his horse through the forests and grasslands of northern China, the very place where his ancestors rose to power. He was searching for the foundation of his life and career. Every time he passed the Great Wall, he reflected deeply. The Great Wall, neglected for years and now in ruins, had long been a source of concern for emperors throughout the ages. His ancestors had broken through the Great Wall to enter, and without Wu Sangui, they still could have. So what was the point of the Great Wall? Could a mighty court rely on mere bricks for defense? But without the Great Wall, where would our defenses lie? His reflections on this can be glimpsed in an edict he issued in 1691. That May, the commander-in-chief of Gubeikou, Cai Yuan, proposed to the court that the section of the Great Wall under his jurisdiction was "severely collapsed and should be repaired." Kangxi, however, completely disagreed. His edict stated: Since the Qin dynasty built the Great Wall, the Han, Tang, and Song dynasties also frequently repaired it. Yet at those times, were there no border troubles? In the late Ming dynasty, my great-grandfather led his army to advance directly, and all the routes collapsed without resistance. It shows that the key to defending the country lies in governing well and ensuring the people's contentment. When the people are pleased, the foundation of the state will be stable, and the borders will naturally be secure—this is what is meant by "unity is strength." As for areas like Gubeikou and Xifengkou, I have personally inspected them and found them mostly damaged. Now, if you want to repair them, it would involve mobilizing the people for labor, which could only harm them. Moreover, the Great Wall stretches for thousands of miles—how many troops would be needed to defend it? His reasoning was indeed very sound. I have always hesitated to praise the "Great Wall complex" buried in our nation's heart, but after reading Kangxi's words, I found a kindred spirit from long ago. Because of this, the Qing dynasty became one of the few dynasties in ancient China that did not extensively repair the Great Wall, and I found this rather satisfying. Of course, repairing the Great Wall today for the sake of cultural preservation is a completely different matter. Kangxi hoped to build an invisible Great Wall. His talk of "governing well and ensuring the people's contentment" sounded grand and abstract, but in reality, he had both hard and soft approaches. The hard approach was establishing the "Mulan Hunting Ground" outside the Great Wall, where every autumn, the emperor would personally lead over ten thousand officials, ministers, and soldiers in large-scale "hunting" exercises, which were actually massive military maneuvers. This not only kept the officials and ministers in a state of bravery and strength but also...