What was Shanghai like in the Ming Dynasty?

Caption: Shanghai City Map Integration Photo courtesy of Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House

At the media briefing held by Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House on August 10, the reporter learned that "Shanghai City Map Integration" will be launched at this year's Shanghai Book Fair.

This atlas consists of three volumes, which are divided into three levels: upper, middle and lower, and span from 1504 (Hongzhi in Ming Dynasty) to 1949. It is the largest complete map of Shanghai in history. 2 17 Shanghai ancient map, which inherits the historical context of the city and shows the cultural temperature of the city.

The oldest existing ancient map of Shanghai (1504)

This interesting ancient map, which comes from Shanghai Local Records, is the earliest existing ancient map of Shanghai, showing the county towns and county boundaries of Shanghai at the beginning of16th century.

The map is divided into chessboards without any road names. The iconic mother river-Huangpu River has become the most important reference for this map. Buildings and plots have been blurred, and some appellations have even been used today. However, the cartographer's arrangement in geographical orientation is relatively rough.

On this map, Huangpu River (then called Huangpu) divides Shanghai into Puxi and Pudong. The center of Puxi is Shanghai County, surrounded by official institutions such as Confucianism and inspectors, and Huangcheng Hotel is in the north of Shanghai County. From the map, the Yuyuan plot centered on the Chenghuang Temple in Shanghai County was a "golden" lot at that time. Among the ancient place names located in Puxi, the only one that is still in use today is Longhua Shop, which corresponds to Longhua Ancient Temple, which was built in the Song Dynasty and was a landmark building at that time.

Caption: Shanghai City Map Integration Inner Page Photo courtesy of Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House

East of Yuyuan Garden, across the river, is the financial center of Lujiazui, Shanghai. According to the map, this area was called "Zhoubapu" at that time, with Sanlinzhuang in the south, Xiashayi in the east and Baoshan in the northeast. Linsan, Xiasha and Baoshan are the place names of Shanghai today, which are still a long way from Lujiazui, but the orientation of ancient maps is generally accurate.

On the four boundaries of the map, 80 miles north of Jiading County, Suzhou, 1 10 miles west of Huating County, 50 miles east of the sea and 70 miles south of Huating County are marked respectively. More than 500 years have passed, and some appellations have been passed down from generation to generation, which is a blessing for Shanghai today.

According to historical records, Shanghai Chenghuang Temple is an important Taoist temple in Shanghai, which was built in Yongle period of Ming Dynasty (1403- 1424) and has a history of nearly 600 years. So when this ancient map was made, the Chenghuang Temple was still very young. Just like today, we look back at the big bright cinema and the world in Shanghai. There are also some names that Baidu can't find, such as "Aiqipu", "Gaochang Township", "Xinxiang" and "Beiting Township" (all in today's inner ring), and which places in Shanghai correspond to today, waiting for readers and experts to further uncover the mystery.

Concession divided the spoils to prove the empire's aggressive ambition.

The map of Shanghai in the 20th century was accompanied by the darkest and humiliating years in China's modern history. Shanghai is divided, and the detailed annotation of Shanghai map almost comes from the surveying and mapping of invading empires such as France, Britain and Japan, which have concessions in Shanghai.

Caption: Shanghai City Map Integration Inner Page Photo courtesy of Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House

The 1904 version of the map of Shanghai Concession collected by the National Library of France is the same as the 1900 version, which is the road construction and planning of the public concession expansion area. At that time, the scale of the French concession was very small. However, the "Falu Influence Zone" is drawn in gray, which is the same as the third expansion of 19 14 French Concession. It proves that the French invaders have long planned to expand the concession.

The map of Shanghai in September collected by Japanese collector Yamashita, 1905, is elegant in color and accurate in printing, reflecting the expansion of Shanghai. The inconspicuous places are marked with odometers from Shanghai to coastal ports in China, and from Shanghai to Nagasaki and Yokohama. It is conceivable that Japan's investigation of the strategic location of Shanghai is well known.

The maps of Shanghai Port of Wusong River on the east coast of China collected by British Waterway Bureau, 1908, 1866 and 1889, were all produced by the British Navy, and the British army continued to survey and map in Shanghai. The focus of surveying and mapping is the Huangpu River waterway surveying and mapping, and it is also an accurate and timely display of the city as the base map of modern Shanghai city map.

The sketches of Shanghai's cities, villages and northern cities drawn by Xuan Tongyuan are like hand-drawn sketches, which are dwarfed by the precise surveying and mapping of the imperial invaders.

It is necessary to fill in the blanks.

With the rapid expansion of the city, the protection of urban history and culture continues to heat up, and the collation and utilization of urban ancient maps gradually enter the field of vision of researchers. In recent years, Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shaoxing and other places have successively published the ancient city atlas. In Shanghai, only a few organizations have published maps of Shanghai and sold single old maps, which is a big shortcoming in urban development practice and academic research. It is necessary to fill this gap.

Caption: Shanghai City Map Integration Inner Page Photo courtesy of Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House

This work took five years from data collection to compilation. During this period, more than 400 ancient maps of Shanghai were collected by Shanghai local cultural and artistic institutions (Shanghai Library, etc.) through systematic special investigation and collection of existing maps of Shanghai at home and abroad. ), the National Library of China and other well-known domestic libraries, collectors of ancient maps, and related institutions in Britain, France, Japan and the United States. By sorting out, selecting and arranging these maps, the Integrated Atlas of Shanghai Urban Maps was finally formed.

Wang Lixiang, president of Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House, said that city map is an important category in city image literature. It is not only the first-hand basic data to interpret urban changes and explore regional history and culture, but also rich in historical and geographical elements, humanistic information, mapping and printing and other scientific and technological cultures, as well as the connotation of urban culture and tourism culture. These radiate to different disciplines and provide irreplaceable important historical information.

Hand typesetting and binding

Shanghai City Map Integration brings together the city maps of Shanghai in the past five centuries, which fully reflects the evolution of such maps and the historical changes of Shanghai. However, the maps of Shanghai handed down from ancient times have different forms, especially the maps are very different, from two fully opened maps to a huge map to a 64-page small picture album, which has brought trouble to publication.

Caption: Shanghai City Map Integration Inner Page Photo courtesy of Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House

The editor of the painting and calligraphy club told reporters that there are many ways to make and print ancient maps, from picture books and prints to modern lithographs, copperplate and offset printing. In order to cope with the complex and diverse forms of printing and binding, Shanghai city map integration adopts a unique book-making form of full-color fine printing, and each page is folded into four pages. The complicated typesetting design makes the binding of this book can only be achieved by expensive manual operation.

Experts pointed out that the publication of this book has full academic research value, whether from the perspective of Shanghai's urban history or cartography history. It has irreplaceable documentary significance for remembering the development process of the city, inheriting the historical context of the city and reflecting the humanistic temperature of the city.

In order to facilitate readers' inquiry and expert research, in addition to paper books, the publishing house has also opened an online port while publishing this book, and will develop more electronic publications in the future.

On the afternoon of August 19, the new book release conference of Shanghai City Map Integration will be held in the central hall. Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House will organize a symposium in September this year. Will the integration of Shanghai city maps produce new historical research topics or new academic achievements? This is expected. (Reporter Le Mengrong)