Current Regulations for Building and Furnishing Chinese Imperial Palaces, 1727-1750

AN OLD manuscript on the above subject was bought in Peking in 1910 by Dr. Berthold Laufer and presented by him to the Library of Congress. There it is classified under Orientalia, Chinese, B. 182.25. It is bound in Chinese fashion in 40 small volumes, these being grouped into 4 t'ao (covers), ten volumes to each t'ao. The volumes average about T7 pages each. The title written in Chinese on the cover of the first t'ao means Fixed Regulations for making the large timbers of the Yuan Ming the Yuan Ming Yuan being the country palace of the Manchu emperors near Peking. This title, evidently taken from the first page of the first volume, does not represent the contents of more than 10 volumes of the 40, namely, volumes 1-4 and 26-31. A title written in pencil on the outside of the first t'ao, possibly by Dr. Laufer's own hand, is the name given by him to the set and means simply Regulations for the Yuan Ming Yuan. This comes a good deal nearer to fitting the actual contents. It is only after a study of each of the volumes in the set-for there is no preface, no table of contents, and no index-that I venture to call these 40 volumes by the title, Current regulations for building and furnishing Chinese imperial palaces, 1727-1750. A study of the contents and nature of these volumes as given below will, I believe, show that this title is justified, for many other kinds of building supplies, large and small timber, stone, brick, tiles, paper, metals, and many kinds of work on all these materials by various craftsmen, skilled and unskilled laborers, are dealt with; and regulations not only for the Yuan Ming Yuan, but also for .other palaces, as those at Jehol, Wan Shou Shan, and Hsiang Shan, and temples inside and outside of these palace grounds, as the Yung Ho Kung, the Lama Temple in Peking, are here recorded. In some places the rules of the government board are quoted, without naming which board. It would seem likely that the Kung Pu, the Board of Works, is meant. But the building operations here provided for seem to be those which would come within the 234

Ancient history · Economics · Economy · Political science · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History

• Reconstructing the Imperial Retreat

  Emily Mokros•Late imperial China•2012

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