Study On The Travel Books In The Ming Dynasty

Travel books is the kind of guide books which can supply travel knowledge andinformation about transportation, accommodation, geography, tourist attraction,historical sites, mountains and rivers, gardens, local conditions and customs, productsto the visitors and travelers.Due to the limitation of the age, the kind of travel bookwith the modern strict definition which means with "tourism" in the title of books orwith combining content including transportation, accommodation, shopping, touristattraction, customs, climate, and so on in one of the book has not appeared in ancientChina.However, with the emergence of tourism activities, the book introducing thegeographical landscape, mountains, transportation, customs, and so on are constantlyemerging. The kind of book more or less provides some information for travelling.And the books could be attributed to the travel book with no doubt.Travel books of the Ming Dynasty should be said that it has entered theflourishing period of in ancient China. Travel books of this period have a largeexpansion in terms of the number, type or geographical distribution. Therefore, this isan important subject which is worth studing. Previously, there were a certain amountof study in the academic, and achieved some study achievements. However, thesestudy mostly from a certain angle or one side to discusses, not from the wholesystems, integrated. Based on this, this thises in the title of “the Ming Dynasty TravelBook", and divided into eight sections to be addressed.The first part that is the “Introduction”, This part elaborate the cause of thetopics selection and the object of study about this doctoral dissertation, and analyzethe previous condition of the related academic study, and it is including the historicaldata based, the use of historiography and research methods, the structure and contentof the article, research value, significance and innovation about this dissertation.The second part that is the “The origin and development of the travel booksbefore the Ming Dynasty”. This section investigated the origin and development oftravel books before the Ming Dynasty，and before the Ming Dynasty travel books can be divided into four stages：The Qin Dynasty is The rudiment period of travel books，Between Qin and Han Dynasties to Wei,Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties，thepreliminary development period of travel books， The Sui and Tang dynasties isprosperous period of the travel books，and the Song and Yuan Dynasties is the furtherdevelopment period of the travel books.The third part that is” The type of travel books in the Ming Dynasty”. The Mingdynasty travel books including four types: the description of traffic and road books,the travel notes, the monuments and the customs, the local chronicles. the descriptionof traffic and road books is divided into maps and road books, this part of the articleanalyzes the development of the Ming Dynasty books about map and the road, andcited a few common maps and journey book. This chapter also discusses the overviewof the development of the travel books in the Ming Dynasty, and the monuments andcustoms books were detailed introduction, inspected the rich tourism resources in theMing Dynasty Chronicles.The forth part that is “The distribution of the travel books”. This chapterdescribes the regional distribution of the travel books, it systematic study thebibliography, the author, volumes, editing period, and its existing-losing situation ofthe travel books, which from6regions, including the north and south zhili regions,the yangtze river regions, the north area of yangtze river, the southwest region, andthe ethnic minority frontier region, foreign countries, as well as it makes a concreteanalysis of the region distribution of the travel book.The fifth Part that is “The author of the Ming Dynasty travel books”. That part ofthe author of travel books is divided into the official and private writings to discuss,and pointed out the characteristics of the official and private writings of the group.The official writing group including the writers who are come from Hanlin officialsappointed to edit books by the emperor， and the members of local officials are morecomplex, who are local officials, school professors and students members, localfamous confucianist, scholar-bureaucrat, literati. Generally speaking, the officialwritings have a higher literary quality. Private Writings of the travel books, mostlyfrom the south of china, most of them from Zhejiang and Jiangxi, the composition ofthe staff are complicated, officials, businessmen, common people, monks, the parentage of them are more jinshi and juren, they love literature, good at poems andcalligraphy, also have the experience of the travel. In addition, this chapter describethe the famous traveler Xu Xiake and Wang Shixing, and about them travel books.The sixth part that is the “Characteristics and Value of the travel books, in theMing Dynasty.” This chapter analyzes the characteristics and value of travel books inthe Ming Dynasty, the characteristics of the travel books of the Ming Dynasty aredivided into three points: First, in the time point of view, there are imbalance in thedevelopment of the travel books at the early Ming Dynasty, the medium-term, and thepost. Secondly, analysis from the geographical space，the economy and culturaldeveloping regions are distributed more travel books than the economic backwardareas. Thirdly, the travel book of the Ming Dynasty gradually becomes more portableand practical, from the voluminous and knowledge-based. Because of theContent-rich of travel books, it has an important value in the study of historicalmaterials, tourism, geography. In aspect of the historical materials, there are a lot ofmaterials about political, economic, cultural and military information, which providesa wealth of data for the study of these aspects of the Ming Dynasty. In the aspect ofthe tourism, the travel books on the one hand propagate the scenic spot, on the otherhand provide traffic guidance and guides to the visitors. to introduce the concept oftourism and travel Road of the Ming Dynasty. at last, the instruction about conceptof the tourism is still instructive to the modern tourism concept. in Geography, therecords of the natural geography and human geography reflected the scientificunderstanding of the natural geographical phenomena and concept of the determinismof geographic environment, by the people of Ming dynasty.The seventh part that is “The reasons for the prosperity of travel books in theMing dynasty”. This section discussed the reasons of the travel books flourished inthe Ming dynasty, and following several aspects of the reasons: firstly, the supportingof the central and local government to edit the travel books. Secondly, the frequentcommunication between the Ming dynasty and the foreign, which promote thedevelopment of the book about the introduction of foreign history, culture, customs,transportation, geography. Thirdly, the developed commodity economy during themiddle-latter Ming dynasty provide a certain economic base to the rise of travel books, The development of the national water and land transportation systems, notonly to be the one of the reasons of frequency tourism activities in the Ming Dynasty,and to promote a large number of the traffic and road books to appear. Fifth, thetourism boom of the late Ming, the direct cause of the travel books flourished. Finally,the development of the photo xylography and printing industry provide the technicalconditions for the rise of travel books.The eighth part that is "The conclusion," discusses the practical significance ofthe travel books of the Ming Dynasty. Recorded travel information and knowledge inthe travel books, not only supplies the travel information for the travel and traveler,and these preserved books still provide a lot of textual information to the modernpeople who are want to understand the ancient transport geography, mountains,attractions, customs, property, resources. it also has important practical significance tothe development of the modern tourism, especially.