What are the documents about maps in China?

Most of China's ancient maps were localized, and there were very few maps of the whole country or of large areas. Military maps were mostly improvised, and sand trays were made by ancient scout scouts based on temporary reconnaissance of the terrain.

According to legend, the Yellow Emperor had a war with Chiyu, and the Yellow Emperor ordered one of his ministers, Shi Huang, to draw a map of the terrain. This map in the yellow emperor and Chiyu war, the yellow emperor over Chiyu played a great role, the yellow emperor used this map will be captured and killed in the Jizhou wild.

The primitive period, the ancestors of the tribal survival is extremely difficult, whether it is to expand the territorial scope of the East and West, to compete for more resources, or to avoid floods and beasts, wind, thunder, rain and snow natural disasters, the most urgent need is based on astronomy, orientation, topography, to decide whether the tribe is on the warpath, migration, divination graphic or labeling of the river, the landscape of the life of a practical graphic.

The primitive geography drawn by Shi Huang, while realizing the functions of divining heaven and earth and sacrificing to gods and ghosts, also easily became the reference for Huang Di to apply in the battle and the basis for adopting different methods of warfare, and became the magic weapon of Huang Di to win the battle.

The Yellow Emperor used the Shi Huang map shows the geography of the situation of the formation, sent generals Yinglong dams in the high water to block Chiyu, the use of domesticated beasts through the favorable terrain directly into the Chiyu camp kill.

The Yellow Emperor also used the changes in the astronomical situation to win the war. According to Chi You, he wanted to use the foggy sky chaos to win the situation, the fog after the wind, sand and dust meteorological changes, relying on the guidance of the guide car to catch up with the victory, captured Chi You.

These processes are wonderful place, it is the role of the map of our country's primitive period and the role of geographic features, meteorological changes in the results for my use.

Spring and Autumn and Warring States period, the map has been commonly used in the military. The book "Guanzi? Map chapter" recorded that all the main soldiers to fight, must first look at the map, know the terrain, in order not to lose. Sun Tzu's Art of War? Topography" also records that without a map, do not know the terrain, will be defeated.

Military maps of this period were engraved on wooden boards, including mountain ranges, rivers, towns, roads and other relevant locations, with a certain scale, and the compass was widely used.

By the Qin Dynasty, the application of military sand tablets to study operations had already appeared. The Records of the Grand Historian (史记?). Qin Shi Huang Ben Ji" recorded: "with mercury for the hundred rivers and seas, phase hunger irrigation Han, the upper with astronomy, the lower with geography."

It is said that when Qin was deployed to exterminate the six countries, Qin Shihuang personally piled up sand tables to study the geographical situation of each country, and with the assistance of Li Si, he sent his general Wang Jian to conduct the unification war. Later, when Qin Shi Huang was building his tomb, he piled up a large topographical model in the tomb and used the topographical model as a burial object, which shows that Qin Shi Huang recognized the importance of maps from the unification war.

The model in Qin Shi Huang's tomb not only has mountains, hills, cities and so on, but also uses mercury to simulate rivers and seas, and uses mechanical devices to make the mercury flow cycle. It can be said that this is the earliest prototype of the sand table, which has a history of more than 2,200 years.

Archaeologists unearthed three maps on silk in the Mawangdui No. 3 Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province, including a garrison map, a topographic map and a city map. The garrison map reflects the deployment of the army's strength for guarding and fighting at that time.

Garrison maps are specialized for military use, highlighting the name of the garrison, the location of the defense, castles, fortresses, beacons, pools, and boundaries of the defense area, etc. These maps are the first of their kind in the world. It is the earliest colorful military map that can be seen in the world now, reflecting the superb level of geographical map knowledge at that time.

The Garrison Map represents the content related to the activities of the garrison with bright and colorful heavy colors on top of the main level. The conspicuous triangular castle indicates the main camp, while the red and black overlay boxes indicate the fortress.

And the general mountains, rivers and other basic elements of geography are marked out in a light tone of cyan color, placed on the bottom of the map above the secondary level. The layers are distinct and easy to see at a glance, similar to the multi-level planar representation of modern specialized maps.

The mountain ranges in the garrison map are symbolized by "mountain" pictograms, and the ridges are indicated by a single line. Rivers are shown in light colors of green. This reduces the load of non-specialized content on the map and achieves the practical effect of highlighting specialized content and themes.

Garrison map of the settlements expressed in red circles, which indicates the number of households, uninhabited also indicates that there are people in the settlements of the most households, the least households. Roads are mostly connected to the main settlements and are indicated in bold red color.

The garrison map reflects the terrain of the garrison camp. Garrison camps were chosen for favorable terrain conditions. The castle mostly chooses the place surrounded by water and leaning against the mountain, and sets up separate guard towers to control the terrain. It reflects China's ancient tradition of compound troop deployment and the guarding idea of emphasizing the use of terrain.

The garrison map clearly indicates the trapezoidal military deployment composed of first-line troops, second-line troops, command headquarters and reserves at that time. Beacon towers are also marked on the ridges of the defense area, which served as both forward observation posts and communication facilities at the time.

According to "Houhan Shu? Ma Yan biography" records: 32 AD, Emperor Guangwu conquered Tianshui, Wudu local power Kui clamor, general Ma Yan "gathered rice for the valley, pointing to draw the situation", so that Emperor Guangwu had a "captive in my eyes" feeling. This is a precedent in the history of war in China to use the sand table to study tactics.

Sui-Tang period is the feudal society of China's heyday, political and economic prosperity, scientific and cultural development, the ancient scientific and technological system developed to a mature stage. In this context, military surveying and mapping technology, such as military map production, military engineering surveys, military geographic surveys and other aspects of a series of major achievements.

Sui-Tang set up under the Ministry of Military Affairs, the Department of the main military surveying and mapping, including the national and neighboring areas of the map of surveying and mapping and management. Hundred Officials Zhi" records that the Ministry of Military Affairs under the Department of the Department in charge of maps.

During the Tang Dynasty, the Department of the military geography of the East, West, South, North and Central five areas of the dynamic changes, such as military towns, garrisons or areas, as well as beacons and defenses, the military geography of these elements in the military maps are clearly visible.

Sui-Tang period, military map production showed unprecedented prosperity. According to "New Tang Book? Art and literature" records, the preservation of geographic map books at that time there are 160, 1292 volumes, of which 18 kinds of maps of all kinds, 489 volumes. Among these maps, the famous military maps or maps with military use mainly include:

128 volumes of District Yu Tu Zhi compiled by Yu Mao in Sui Dynasty; 100 volumes of Zhu Zhou Tu Jing Ji compiled by Lang Mao; 3 volumes of Western Regions Tu Zhi compiled by Pei Ru, who was responsible for the military affairs of Northwest China.

Tang Dynasty, there are Jia Tan presided over the compilation and drawing of Guanzhong Longru and Shannan Kyushu and other maps, "the sea China and Yi map", "Zhenyuan ten road map"; Li Jifu presided over the compilation and drawing of the "ten road map," 10 volumes, the "Yuanhe County Map" 40 volumes, of which only the "Yuanhe County Map" part of the transmission.

In addition, a large number of regional maps appeared during the Sui and Tang dynasties, such as the Dangerous Map of Hebei and the Map of Huaixi, which became an important part of military maps.

Northern Song Dynasty, the famous scientist Shen Kuo developed the sand table production method, the Great Song Dynasty and the Khitan border along the terrain made of wooden terrain model. For the sake of convenience, later changed to stone surface paste wood shavings made on wooden panels, his Dingzhou, cold winters, easy to fall off, and then switched to molten wax production.

Reported to the emperor, Emperor Shenzong of Song looked at the very commendable, and ordered the production of border states to follow suit. Because it is applicable to the military, it was soon popularized.

Yuan cartographer Zhu Siben, with field survey data, reference to previous writings, took 10 years to draw the "map of public opinion", wide range of materials, careful selection, the use of the counting of miles to draw the square mapping method, the degree of accuracy over the predecessor, is the history of China's maps, a very influential map. Unfortunately, the map is too large to be carried and engraved, and has now been lost.

Ju Siben is a Yuan dynasty geographer, map cartographer. He traveled around Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan 10 provinces. He inherited the method of drawing square from Pei Xiu of the Wei and Jin Dynasties and Jia Tan of the Tang Dynasty, i.e., drawing the map with squares, each representing a certain mileage, and drew the Map of Public Opinion, which made him an epoch-making figure in the geography of the Yuan Dynasty and in the history of Chinese maps.

The Map of Public Opinion, with China as the main body and foreign countries as the backdrop, is more detailed and has more accurate graphic outlines. This map systematically used legend symbols and became a model for drawing the general map of the country in the early years of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

Luo Hongxian in the Ming Dynasty redrew Zhu Siben's Map of Public Opinion and named it Guang Yimou Tu. This atlas is an atlas of the world as far as the geography of the time can be seen, with the map of the Ming Dynasty as the centerpiece, and divided into sections according to administrative districts. In addition, the atlas was accompanied by some specialized maps that had important relations with the national economy. Therefore, it constituted a comprehensive atlas of the whole country in the Ming Dynasty. This atlas in the Ming and Qing dynasties for many times engraved, widely circulated, has a great influence.

Guangyuitu consists of 45 maps, including Nine Border Map, Sea Defense Map, and River Defense Map, which are obviously military in nature.

"Nine Border Map" is the Ming dynasty court in order to defend the north of the WARARAR harassment, east of the Yalu River, west to the Jiayuguan Pass, will be set up in the nine border towns, namely, Liaodong, Xuanfu, Datong, Yansui, Ningxia, Gansu, Jizhou, Taiyuan, Guyuan, respectively, engraved on a map. Each town are stationed in heavy guards, is a linked northern defense system.

Each side of the map is accompanied by a brief description of the number of troops in the garrison, the number of soldiers and horses under each border town, and the hoarding of grain and grass.

Chen Zusui, who was in charge of maps for the Ministry of Military Affairs in the Ming Dynasty, made a detailed study of the old maps left over from history and drew a map that reflected the importance of the military elements of the Huangming Job Square Map.

The map was created out of the needs of Chen Zusui's work in the Ministry of War, focusing on the military elements of the drawing. For example, in the drawing of the geographical elements of the border, change the old map detailed drawings of the shortcomings of the territory and sparse outside. The old map of the Ming dynasty lost land, also painted in the map, he said can never be "abandoned without question", used to inspire the belief that the restoration of the country.

Sea Defense Map is also a military map of the Ming Dynasty. Inside the map, there is not only a road map of the Japanese invasion along the coast, but also the Coastal Shashan Map, which depicts elements such as coastal towns, islands, mountains, seas, beaches, coastlines and military camps.

The map emphasizes the topography of mountain ranges along the coast, estuaries and bays, small islands and reefs, military camps, command posts, and beacon towers. The orientation of the map is mostly based on the mainland as the lower end and the sea as the upper end.

"River defense map" is also a military map appeared in the Ming Dynasty. It with the sea defense map as a pair of twin sisters, the surviving more complete Ming dynasty river defense map is "Zheng Kai block miscellaneous writings" in the "river defense map". The map is painted on both sides of the Yangtze River topography, residential areas, towns and city walls, towers, islands in the river, river defense military description.

The late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the Western mapping technology on China's cartography has a great impact on China's cartography, so that China's cartography into a new period of development of modern cartography. Emperor Kangxi was very interested in measuring geography and drawing maps, in its 3 times of conquest of Kardan and tour of the Northeast, are always ready to measure latitude and longitude, for the preparation of cartography.

The Qing dynasty court drawing maps, has paid attention to the examination of the historical development of the border areas and the measurement of latitude and longitude.

For example, during the Yongzheng period, "Imperial Opinion Map" reflected the topography and political and military situation in the northeast, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and 15 provinces in the interior of our country at that time, and also included Siberia, Pamir west of the Mediterranean Sea to the east of the Central Asian mountains, rivers, inhabitants and other geographic content, which is a large map of China and foreign countries.

The Qing dynasty in the drawing of maps, very clearly marked the scope of its sovereignty over the territory and the effective jurisdiction of the border areas. Particular attention was paid to the boundaries of Tibet, Xinjiang and the southeastern sea. Similar maps of the Qing Dynasty were of a distinctly military nature.

The national maps drawn during the Qing dynasty are not only a symbol and strong evidence of the extent of the national boundaries in the 18th century, but also have a high academic value in science and technology.