In 1983, at a meeting held in Guilin, Guangxi, to commemorate the Ming Dynasty geographer Xu Xiake, Tan Qijun, a famous scholar of geography, delivered a speech entitled "Outstanding Geographers at the Same Time as Xu Xiake— Wang Shisheng", pointing out that "from the perspective of physical geography, Xu is better than Wang, and from the perspective of human geography (including economy), Wang is better than Xu". In 1985, at the national Xu Xiake Academic Symposium, Tan Qijun once again spoke highly of Wang Shisheng, saying that he and Xu were "between Bo Zhong".
Xu Xiake was a Geographer, traveler and writer of the Ming Dynasty, who after 30 years of investigation, wrote a 600,000-word geographical masterpiece "Xu Xiake's Travels", which was called "Ancient Strange People" by later generations, leaving a strong mark in the history of Chinese science, and now it has long been a household name. So, who is Wang Shisheng, and why can he be "between Bo Zhong" and Xu Xiake?
Talking about the historical figures of the Ming Dynasty, under the brainwashing of today's Qing Palace drama, many people think that it is not so, it can not be compared with the Qing Dynasty at all, in fact, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the theory of imprisoning thought has no longer occupied the mainstream, when the society presented the phenomenon of a hundred flowers competing, various ideological trends continued to emerge, the most widely known of which is the psychology of letting the mind free, in this context, the Ming Dynasty appeared more and more "strange" characters, far less than the Qing Dynasty Yuan Ming "I advise the Heavenly Gong to shake up again, eclectic and degrade talents" The poems express the helplessness of rigid social thought, and Wang Shisheng is one of the "strange characters of the Ming Dynasty"—a literati who especially likes to travel.
Wang Shisheng is a native of Linhai, Taizhou, Zhejiang, born in one of the four major families in Linhai in the Ming Dynasty, and is the son of a rich family like Xu Xiake, but was born 40 years earlier than Xu Xiake. The so-called "poor family and rich road", today is like this, especially in ancient times, today there are occasionally "poor travel" methods, and if the ancients want to travel all over the country, it is impossible to have enough silver, Wang Shisheng and Xu Xiake have money is the material basis for them to travel everywhere. It is worth mentioning that the genealogy of the "Linhai Zhang'an Wang Clan" records that the Wang Shi sex family began with the thousand-year-old Hao clan - the "Taiyuan Wang Clan", that is, one of the families founded by the Great Grandson of the Qin Dynasty, and the other great-grandson of Wang Qi was the Langya Wang Clan.
According to the literature, Wang Shisheng was born in the Jiajing period, and he was fond of traveling, "Shao Huai Xiang Ziping (Eastern Han Dynasty hermit, traveling all over the mountains and rivers), footprints want to travel all over the Five Mountains". In the fifth year of the Wanli Calendar (1577), Wang Shisheng entered the high school and began his eunuch career, which also allowed Wang Shisheng to almost travel throughout the Ming Dynasty. At that time, China was divided into 15 provincial-level administrative divisions, Xu Xiake and Wang Shisheng each went 14, Wang Lack fujian, Xu Lack Sichuan. Since Wang Shi was earlier than Xu Xiake, the first traveler of the Ming Dynasty should be Wang Shi, not Xu Xiake.
In ancient society, although Chinese geography has always been a prominent study, it is on the edge of the xianxue, and the ancient literati tend to pay more attention to literature research, word of mouth is more, and field investigation is less, so it is naturally prone to many fallacies. Different from the traditional literati, Wang Shisheng personally experienced and acted, "all see and hear, not rather than que", "poor and extremely dangerous, where a rock and a hole, a grass and a tree, all are exquisite." ”
However, unlike Xu Xiake's "donkey friend-style" self-guided tour, Wang Shisheng's tourism benefited more from the status of an official. Starting from 1577 as the county magistrate of Qingshan County, Henan, after which Wang Shisheng successively served as a member of the Li Ke Zhi Zhong, the Guangxi Senator, the Henan Tixue, the Shandong Suffragist, the Right Youdu Imperial History, and the Nanjing Hongxu Temple Zhengqing, the official status gave Wang Shisheng the convenience of travel, and posterity commented that he was "always traveling, no land and no traveling, no official and no tour", which also made Wang Shisheng's perspective very different from Xu Xiake's. Xu Xiake's travels are of an adventurous nature, there is no or abnormal mature route, every day to record the day's observations, pay more attention to the description of the natural geographical environment, belongs to the natural environment-based tourism records; Wang Shi sex is based on mature routes, records are travelogues recalled after the fact, pay more attention to human geography, national economy and people's livelihood, with a high degree of analysis, summary, so his "Five Mountains Youcao", "Guangyou Zhi", "Yu Dan Collection" and other works have a deeper value. Among them, "GuangzhiXuan", "Wuyue Youcao", "Guangyouzhi", etc., have now been edited into "Three Kinds of Geography Books of Wang Shisheng", which is a representative work of Wang Shisheng.
The famous geographer Zhou Zhenhe wrote in the preface to Wang Shisheng's book: "Since the "History of History, Cargo Colonization" and "Hanshu Geographical Chronicle" set a precedent for the study of human geography in China, they have not exceeded the level of "History" and "Han" for a long time since then. It can be said that it was not until the advent of "Guangyouzhi" and "Guangzhizhi" that it jumped to a new level. That is to say, Zhou Zhenhe believes that Wang Shisheng is an epoch-making and landmark figure in Chinese geography, and that Chinese geographical theory has basically stood still for 1500 years since the Han Dynasty, and it is Wang Shisheng who single-handedly pushed it to a new level. The evaluation is surprising, so what is the extraordinary point of view in the works of Wang Shisheng?
Nowadays, we all know that the natural environment will affect people's behavior, and the behavior of the residents of the northwest desert and the residents of the Jiangnan water town must be very different, but the ancients did not know this situation, even if someone may know one or two, but it was not clearly stated, and Wang Shisheng wrote it out in more detail, and it can still be read to this day.
Taking Zhejiang as an example, Wang Shisheng believes that Zhejiang can be divided into three regions, namely water towns, hills and coasts. Among them, Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou area belongs to the plain water town, belongs to the "people of ze country", rich in products, while the water network is densely packed with boats and boats to and fro, department stores gather here, so the local is relatively rich, the gentry have great power, and the customs are more luxurious; Ningbo, Shaoxing, and Wenzhou are adjacent to the sea, belonging to the "coastal people", the local has the benefits of the coast, but because there is not much business, it is not too rich, and the customs are "half of the luxury and frugality"; Jinhua, Quzhou, etc. are located in the hilly area, belong to the "valley people", and have "stone gas bells". Strong temperament, habit frugality" characteristics, and the locals do not take the rich seriously. To this day, looking back at Wang Shisheng's analysis, at least the economic situation in various parts of Zhejiang is more or less the same, which also shows that Wang Shisheng has a unique vision and extraordinary insights.
What is even more surprising is that Wang Shisheng's vision is very advanced, and as early as 400 years ago, he has proposed the possibility of the development of Qian and Guangdong University.
Because wang Shisheng paid great attention to the social economy, transportation, geographical victory, folk customs and people's sufferings related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and paid attention to the study of social and cultural differences in various places, he put forward a point of view: from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Song Ming, China's economic center of gravity continued to shift south.
In the "Guangyou Zhi", Wang Shisheng pointed out: "Since the past, Yong, Ji, He, and Luo were China, and Chu, Wu, and Yue were Yi, and now the famous cultural relics are prosperous in the southeast. Guests have clouds: this cycle of heavenly fortune, the movement of the earth's veins, the principle of multiplication and division of each other. The rest is true. That is to say, Wuchu used to be a barbarian land, but now it is more prosperous than the "Chinese" land in the past, because of the "cycle of heavenly fortune, the movement of the earth's veins, and the principle of multiplication and division of each other." Although it is not scientific enough to regard the southward shift of the economic center of gravity as a cause such as heavenly fortune and earth pulse, it is very rare to summarize the southward shift of the economic center of gravity and the analysis and summary of its reasons, which is very rare at the level of cognition at that time.
In "Guangzhixuan", Wang Shisheng pointed out: "Jiangnan Jiali is not as good as a thousand years. Sun Wu Liguo Jiankang, six generations of prosperity, although ancient and modern, but also Jiankang (Nanjing) a corner of the end. Until the establishment of the Tang Qian clan, the five kings of Wuyue succeeded to the throne, and the two Zhejiang provinces began to flourish. The Zhao and Song dynasties have only been around for six or seven hundred years, and it is in their heyday that it is unknown when they will turn to Qian and Guangdong. He believes that before the Song Dynasty, Jiangnan as a whole was not prosperous enough, and the Three Kingdoms of Eastern Wu shifu was only rich in Nanjing, until after the five generations of Wu Yue, the land of the two Zhejiang provinces began to flourish, and now it has entered a period of prosperity, according to this law, the future economic center of gravity may shift from Jiangnan to Qian, Guangdong and other places. Facts have proved that in recent decades, Guangdong's economic development has been rapid, although it cannot be said that the economic center of gravity has shifted south, but the economic rise of Guangdong has also confirmed Wang Shisheng's vision to a certain extent.
Wang Shisheng belongs to the people who do a good job as an official, play well, learn well, poetry, and have a newer perspective, but unfortunately he died at the age of 52. More regrettably, Wang Shisheng's works did not attract attention, although Xu Xiake called Wang Shisheng "Wang Shiyue" in his travelogue, and he was very respectful, Gu Yanwu quoted the doctrine of Wang Shishi in many places in his works, and even recorded the original text of Wang Shishi in the whole section, but Wang Shisheng still did not get the attention of the Qing Dynasty rulers and literati, but was silent for more than 400 years, until the 1980s, it was not concerned, but unfortunately it is still little known, which has to be said to be a regret in the history of Chinese geography.