Everything about Xu Xiake totally explained
Xu Xiake (
January 5 1587—
March 8 1641), born
Xu Hongzu (徐弘祖),
courtesy name Zhenzhi (振之), was a
Chinese travel writer and
geographer of the
Ming Dynasty (
1368-
1644) known best for his famous geographical treatise, and noted for his bravery and humility. He traveled throughout China for more than 30 years, documenting his travels extensively (which would be compiled posthumously into the
The Travel Diaries Xu Xiake, and his work translated by Ding Wenjiang). Xu's writing falls under the old Chinese literary category of 'travel record literature' ('youji wenxue'), which used
narrative and
prose styles of writing to portray one's travel experiences.
Life
With an ancestry in
Jiangxi, he was born Xu Hongzu (宏祖), as the second son of Xu Yu'an (徐豫庵, 1545-1694) and Wang Ruren (王孺人, 1545-1625). It was often commented that it was his mother's encouragement for him to travel that shaped Xu's predilections. His sobriquet is Zhenzhi (振之).
Xiake was an alternate sobriquet (別號) given to him by his friend Chen Jiru (陳繼儒, 1558-1639) and it means "one who is in the sunset clouds". His other friend,
Huang Daozhou (黃道周, 1585-1646), also gave Xu an alternate sobriquet:
Xiayi (霞逸), meaning "untrammelled in the sunset clouds."
On his journeys throughout China he travelled with a servant called Gu Xing (顧行). He faced many hardships along the way, as he was often dependent on the patronage of local scholars who would help him after being robbed of all his belongings. Xu traveled throughout the provinces of China (often on foot) to write his enormous geographical and
topographical treatise, documenting various details of his travels, such as the locations of small gorges, or
mineral beds such as
mica schists (see
mineralogy). It was because of the confusion of earlier Chinese over the enormous bend and detour of the
Lu Nan Shan mountains (south of
Ningyuan) that they believed the Jin Sha Jiang River was its own. It was Xu Xiake who discovered that the Jin Sha Jiang was simply the northern section of the
Yangtze River.
[Further Information]
Get more info on 'Xu Xiake'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://xu_xiake.totallyexplained.com">Xu Xiake Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
