The indigenous people of Shanghai's old city know that there was once an old county near Xueyuan Road (ancient qujiawan), and it is said that in 1291 (the 28th year of the Yuan Dynasty) Shanghai had already established a county, so did Shanghai build a town?
It is really difficult to answer this question, because the ancient local history is lost in large numbers, making it very difficult to determine the date of the establishment of Shanghai Town. Since the beginning of the discussion in 1962, some scholars believe that Shanghai has not built a town, but most scholars believe that Shanghai has built a town.
To sum up, the main views at present are the Northern Song Dynasty, which believes that the town was built in 1074; the Southern Song Dynasty, which believes that the town was built from 1193 to 1267; and there is also a late Song dynasty that believes that the town was built in 1267.
So, when exactly was the town built?
The Chronicle of Shanghai County contains two important pieces of information
Shanghai County during the Song and Yuan dynasties
The picture above is the "Shanghai County in the Song-Yuan Period" in the nine-year compulsory education textbook "Shanghai Rural Land Theory", which is an illustration in the textbook, which states the founding time of Shanghai Town - during the Xianchun period of the Southern Song Dynasty (in the red box), there is no clear age, which is relatively vague.
Map of the ancient Shanghai town of Lihuating
The picture above is the illustration published in the first volume of jiaqing's "Shanghai County Chronicle" (1814) in the Qing Dynasty, "Ancient Shanghai Town Lihua pavilion territory map", which brings together some important information about Shanghai town, let's take a closer look. The red arrow pointed to the box reads "Song Xining seven years of shaoxing twenty-nine years of boycott of the city of The five townships and counties of Huating northeast of the yuan", there is no punctuation, some difficult to understand, but, split this text, divided into three sentences, it is easy to understand, here is hidden two very important information!
Important information one is "Song Xining established the town for seven years." ”
According to Jiaqing's "Shanghai County Chronicle", Shanghai was founded in 1074 by the Northern Song Dynasty, which is nearly 200 years earlier than the currently recognized date of the establishment of the town in 1267.
We also read the same view of the Northern Song Dynasty: "Chongzhen Songjiang Fu Zhi Volume One" and Tongzhi "Shanghai County Chronicle", the above three zhi corroborate each other, and jointly determine that the date of the establishment of the town in Shanghai is the seventh year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1074), not the third year of the Southern Song Dynasty Xianchun (1267).
Genealogy of the Cao Clan of Pingyang
"Fan Xi Old Preface"
Zhou Minfa, a well-known historian in Shanghai, in the article "Examination and Criticism of the Chronology of Shanghai Jianzhen" in the first issue of 2018, disclosed and discussed in detail the "Fanxi Old Sequence" at the beginning of the newly discovered "Pingyang Cao Clan Genealogy" in Gaohang Town, Pudong, and recorded the heavy documentary data of "Xi Ning Placed Shanghai Town in Huating for Seven Years" (red line), which is the only Song Dynasty historical material that indicates the exact age of Shanghai Town today, echoing the above three Ming and Qing historical materials, forming a chain of evidence. Solved the historical suspense case of the establishment of a town in Shanghai.
However, the matter is still not completely resolved, and some discerning scholars have doubts about the Republic of China engraving of the Fanxi Old Order written by Xie Guoguang, a famous township tribute to the Song Dynasty in 1172, and doubt whether there is a possibility that the small characters in the "Fanxi Old Order" "The Northern Song Dynasty Xining Built a Town in Huating in seven years" were added by the descendants of the Republic of China period.
Now, let's look at important information two, "Shaoxing twenty-nine years of strike."
The municipal ship is an institution similar to today's customs, which means that the imperial court once abolished the city ship (field) in Shanghai in 1159. Doesn't this prove that Shanghai once had a municipal affairs (field)." According to the custom, where there is a municipal ship or a municipal farm, there should be at least a geographical entity at the administrative level above the town level, that is, Shanghai has already established a town before 1159, so it is wrong to insist that Shanghai was established as a town in 1267 at the end of the Song Dynasty.
Map of the second county of Songjiang Province in the Yuan Dynasty
In addition, Chongzhen's "Songjiang FuZhi" and Kangxi's "Songjiang Fuzhi" also have records of the strike in 1159, and the three local chronicles corroborate each other, which locked in song Xining's seven years (1074) Shanghai to build a town and established such an institution as the municipal ship (customs).
This method of argumentation is called the method of disproof, which is a method of indirect reasoning that can be used as an aid to the success of a direct argument. In the case of the construction of a town in Shanghai, we use the backward reverse thinking counter-evidence method, establishing the Southern Song Dynasty town in 1267 as the positive argument, the Northern Song Dynasty 1074 town as the anti-argument, the difference between the positive and negative arguments is nearly 200 years, because at the intermediate time node (1159) there is a "strike on the market", so that all the arguments that the town was built after 1159 are untenable, and the Southern Song theory (1193-1267) and the song dynasty theory (1267) as a positive argument cannot be established. Then, the argument that the northern Song Dynasty Xining built a town in the seventh year (1074) can be established.
His birthday was seven years after the Northern Song Dynasty
A brief map of the sea traffic routes of the Tang and Song dynasties
From the "Brief Map of Maritime Traffic Routes of the Tang and Song Dynasties", it can be found that the maritime transportation in the Tang and Song Dynasties was developed and trade was prosperous, which prompted the rapid rise of trade (maritime) institutions such as the Song Dynasty Municipal Shipping Division. In 1264, Qinglong Town established a municipal sub-division, and later due to the shallow silt of the upper reaches of the Wusong River, blocking the sea vessel traffic, Qinglong Port lost its port significance, and moved to Shanghai Town to establish a municipal sub-division.
From the Northern Song Dynasty in 1074 Shanghai Lizhen, in 1113 Huating Xing set up the city of Fangwu, in 1131 Qinglong Town set up Qinglong Town Shipping, in 1159 to strike Shanghai Shipping (field), in 1205 Huating City Shipping was abolished, until the Southern Song Dynasty in 1264 Qinglong Town City Shipping Branch moved to Shanghai Town to establish the City Shipping Branch, the city around a large circle, and finally returned to Shanghai Town, before and after the time experienced nearly 200 years, Shanghai Town from the establishment of the city ship (field) to the city ship branch of the process, can be described as extremely difficult.
In 1267 of the Southern Song Dynasty, the imperial court appointed Dong Kai to serve as the official and consular town of Shanghai Town, and the date of this major event (Dong Kai Jian Town) happened to collide with the mistaken date of the establishment of Shanghai Town (Southern Song Dynasty 1267), and many people confused the date of Dong Kai Jian Town with the date of Shanghai Town, and over the years, it gradually evolved into the conclusion that "Xian Chun set up a town in Shanghai for three years", and it was not known that the prison town that Dong Kai was also leading, Shanghai Town, had already been built in the Northern Song Dynasty 200 years ago, and the prison town and the town were not the same thing! Moreover, dong Kai's two famous articles written in the fifth year of Xianchun, "Records of ancient xiutang" and "Records of the Blessed Pavilion", did not mention the "major event" of building a town.
The mystery of the town of Shanghai's birthday, an unsolved case that has been debated for sixty years, now has the answer. The "Roots of Shanghai, Reminiscences of shanghai's Old Town" (published in 2019), written by Shanghai Tongzhiguan and the editorial board of Shanghai Beach Magazine, reads: "... Before the first year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1023), there was an institution for collecting liquor taxes, Shanghai Affairs, the seventh year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1074), and Shanghai County in the 28th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1291). "As an authoritative institution for the study of Shanghai history, it was determined that the date of the establishment of The Town of Shanghai was the seventh year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1074), so the mystery of the birthday of the town of Shanghai was solved.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Wang Haiyan Text Editor: Wang Haiyan Caption Source: Courtesy of the interviewee
Source: Author: Xu Dawei, Zhou Feihua, Wang Anyu