Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain_ Environment, Identity, and Empire in Qing China\'s Borderlands

system’s revision by linking celestial bodies to contemporary Tang

administrative territories while retaining Nine Provinces terminology.

Yixing’s improvement was to link mountains and rivers, instead of

ephemeral administrative divisions, to ruling celestial bodies. The car-

dinal points of this system were China’s “Five Sacred Peaks” or

“Marchmounts” (Wuyue), as well as its major rivers, chieflythe

Yellow and the Yangzi, whose (meta)geographical images (shanchuan

zhi xiang) directly corresponded to those of the Milky Way and con-

stituted the main barriers between Han and non-Han peoples. The

“northern barrier”(beijie) was roughly delineated by the Yellow River

and the Great Wall“to restrict”the westernRongand the northernDi.

The“southern barrier”(nanjie) was roughly delineated by the Yangzi

and the Lingnan mountain range to keep out the southernManand the

easternYi. Both barriers ran west to east, reaching to Korea in the

north and the coast in the south. Throughout the“stratum”(ji)ofeach

barrier circulated a distinctiveqiforce associated with its particular

direction. The stratum of the northern barrier“carried”theyinforce

that infused the north’s natural conditions within subsurface“terres-

trial veins”(diluo). The stratum of the southern barrier’s terrestrial

veins carried theyangforce that likewise infused the south’s natural

conditions.^20

Yixing restored thefield allocation system’s original basis in physical

topography anchored on major geographical expressions as material

manifestations of space more resistant to human historical change.

Yixing’sworkalsomadeHu’s project feasible because most subsequent

changes were spatially marginal or linguistically nominal. Conse-

quently, despite revisions in the interval, Hu could empiricallyfind that

conditions between antiquity and his own time were“quite similar”in

correspondences between the NineProvinces and the contemporary

Qing map of China proper.^21 Physical geography, not simply human

ethnic difference, played a fundamental role in this process. Indeed,

Yixing found a more anthropocentricbasis alone was too unstable to

preserve thefield allocation system, despite the continuity of the celes-

tial component throughout the system’s permutations. Hanspace in this

way became an enduring expression of the landscape transcending the

dynastic cycle, and this influence is seen in later Song maps and subse-

quent references in the writings of Confucian scholars. Intensified

interethnic conflict during and after the Song made it all the more

important that thefields allocated according to Yixing’sprincipleswere

Hanfields.

28 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain