Nanjing under the Ming Dynasty's two capitals system

The Yellow Book Depository in Lake Xuanwu

Hidden Anecdotes from the Jiangnan Tribute Academy

Little People Write Big History

Listen to history scholars talk about a different kind of Ming

Reading about the Ming Dynasty in the smallest detail

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Under the Microscope of the Great Ming is a documentary literature in which the author has unearthed six long-lost stories from a series of rare folk archival documents of the Ming Dynasty. These six stories focus on a government, a county and even a village, recording the real political life of the lower class civilians at that time, which is like a microscope, examining a certain slice, a certain dimension through details.

One chapter of the book, "Transparency in the World - The Past Life and Present Life of the First Archives of the Great Ming", tells the story of the little-known archives in the Yellow Book Depository during the Zhu Yuanzhang era.The Daming Yellow Book Depository, located in today's Xuanwu Lake scenic area of Nanjing, was the largest archive in ancient China.The

In the Ming Dynasty, money, food and punishment were the most important aspects of social life at the grass-roots level. In the 14th year of Hongwu, the Ming Dynasty began to implement the system of the yellow book of the endowment, i.e., the Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing was selected as the place to store the yellow book of the national archives, which was then called "Houhu Yellow Book Depository".

The name "Huangshu" was originally derived from "huangkou", which originally meant a young bird, and was later used to refer to a young child. In the household registers of the Sui and Tang dynasties, children under the age of three or newly born were called "Huang"."yellow day was born, then registered its number", meaning that the child was born, immediately have to go to the government to report the registration, and since then the word "yellow" evolved out of the meaning of the population, and became the whole household register of the pronouns, also known as the "yellow book"! "TheThe first time the Ming dynasty saved yellow books was in the 14th year of the Hongwu reign. To 10 years after the twenty-fourth year of Hongwu, the court only formally below, the provisions of the yellow book into the central cover, must be mounted with yellow paper. It can be seen is the name of the first yellow book, only after the yellow cover mounted.

"The book was completed, for four books, one to be submitted to the Ministry of Revenue, and the other three to be retained by the Chief Secretary, the prefectures, and the counties." Into the submission of the Ministry of households of the main book, with yellow paper as a cover, was packed trucks, from all directions to the city of Jinling, driving into the gate of zhengyang, that is, later Guanghua Gate.The yellow book of old files will not be destroyed, but the new files will come in constantly, and every ten years there will be 60,000 to 70,000 new files, so where should we put so many files?

Houhu Yellow Book Depository

The excellent thing about Xuanwu Lake is that it is big enough, close enough, safe enough, and also easy to manage. After becoming a military restricted area, due to the isolation from the land on all sides, there is no bridge to pass, the yellow book library is also equipped with the appropriate boatman and official boat, responsible for liaison with the shore, the boat are docked outside the Taiping Gate, every ten years on the first and the sixth only to pass.

Out of moisture and insect considerations, most of the yellow book library built according to the east-west direction, before and after a large window ventilation, which can ensure enough light time. In order to maximize light, yellow books are arranged in rows and rows in the wooden shelves called "shelf cabinet", open on all sides, layered compartment. In order to prevent the roof from leaking rain and getting the documents wet, there is also a slanting board cover on top of the shelf, so that the rain can be channeled to the ground along the board cover. In addition, from April to October each year, managers will also regularly take the documents to the sun to dry, when the doorway of each storehouse are bricked with 10 piers, brick piers between the four iron bars, and then hang the yellow book on it.

Ming chenghua eleven years (AD 1475) qimen county measuring fish scale book.

"Inside the yellow book storehouse, fire is strictly prohibited, even at night, no lamps are allowed, and in winter, no stoves are allowed to be built to keep warm. The ground in the warehouse should be paved with sand, covered with wooden boards. This can not only fire, but also to prevent rodent infestation."As the depot grew, the kitchen was then simply moved from one continent of the lake to the other, and each time the personnel ate, they had to cross both continents of the lake.The arrangement of the yellow books is also very scientificThe storehouse is named East, West, South, North, Front and Back. Its warehouse to the east, west, south, north, before, after the name, specific to the warehouse shelves cabinet, the "thousand words shelves cabinet method" to do the number. The retrieval of the numbering method invented in the period of Song Renzong, that is, the "Thousand Character Essay" for the batch, years and months for the next, in order. "The one thousand characters in the Thousand Character Classic are never repeated and are particularly suitable for coding."