NOTE 2. - Taianfu is, as Magaillans pointed out, T'AI-YUAN FU, the capital
of the Province of Shan-si, and Shan-si is the "Kingdom." The city was,
however, the capital of the great T'ang Dynasty for a time in the 8th
century, and is probably the Tajah or Taiyunah of old Arab writers. Mr.
Williamson speaks of it as a very pleasant city at the north end of a most
fertile and beautiful plain, between two noble ranges of mountains. It was
a residence, he says, also of the Ming princes, and is laid out in Peking
fashion, even to mimicking the Coal-Hill and Lake of the Imperial Gardens.
It stands about 3000 feet above the sea [on the left bank of the
Fen-ho. - H.C.]. There is still an Imperial factory of artillery,
matchlocks, etc., as well as a powder mill; and fine carpets like those of
Turkey are also manufactured. The city is not, however, now, according to
Baron Richthofen, very populous, and conveys no impression of wealth or
commercial importance. [In an interesting article on this city, the Rev. G.
B. Farthing writes (North China Herald, 7th September, 1894): "The
configuration of the ground enclosed by T'ai-yuan fu city is that of a
'three times to stretch recumbent cow.' The site was chosen and described
by Li Chun-feng, a celebrated professor of geomancy in the days of the
T'angs, who lived during the reign of the Emperor T'ai Tsung of that ilk.
The city having been then founded, its history reaches back to that date.
Since that time the cow has stretched twice.... T'ai-yuan city is square,
and surrounded by a wall of earth, of which the outer face is bricked. The
height of the wall varies from thirty to fifty feet, and it is so broad
that two carriages could easily pass one another upon it. The natives would
tell you that each of the sides is three miles, thirteen paces in length,
but this, possibly, includes what it will be when the cow shall have
stretched for the third and last time. Two miles is the length of each
side; eight miles to tramp if you wish to go round the four of them." - H.
C.] The district used to be much noted for cutlery and hardware, iron as
well as coal being abundantly produced in Shan-si. Apparently the present
Birmingham of this region is a town called Hwai-lu, or Hwo-luh'ien, about
20 miles west of Cheng-ting fu, and just on the western verge of the great
plain of Chihli. [Regarding Hwai-lu, the Rev. C. Holcombe calls it "a
miserable town lying among the foot hills, and at the mouth of the valley,
up which the road into Shan-si lies." He writes (p. 59) that Ping-ting
chau, after the Customs' barrier (Ku Kwan) between Chih-li and Shan-si,
would, under any proper system of management, at no distant day become the
Pittsburg, or Birmingham, of China. - H.C.] (Richthofen's Letters, No.
VII. 20; Cathay, xcvii. cxiii. cxciv.; Rennie, II. 265; Williamson's
Journeys in North China; Oxenham, u.s. II; Klaproth in J. As. ser. II.
tom. i. 100; Izzat Ullah's Pers. Itin. in J.R.A.S. VII. 307; Forke,
Von Peking nach Ch'ang-an, p. 23.)
["From Khavailu (Hwo-luh'ien), an important commercial centre supplying
Shansi, for 130 miles to Sze-tien, the road traverses the loess hills,
which extend from the Peking-Kalgan road in a south-west direction to the
Yellow River, and which are passable throughout this length only by the
Great Central Asian trade route to T'ai-yuan fu and by the Tung-Kwan,
Ho-nan, i.e. the Yellow River route. (Colonel Bell, Proc.R.G.S. XII.
1890, p. 59.) Colonel Bell reckons seven days (218 miles) from Peking to
Hwo-lu-h'ien and five days from this place to T'ai-yuan fu." - H.C.]
NOTE 3. - Martini observes that the grapes in Shan-si were very abundant and
the best in China. The Chinese used them only as raisins, but wine was made
there for the use of the early Jesuit Missions, and their successors
continue to make it. Klaproth, however, tells us that the wine of T'ai-yuan
fu was celebrated in the days of the T'ang Dynasty, and used to be sent in
tribute to the Emperors. Under the Mongols the use of this wine spread
greatly. The founder of the Ming accepted the offering of wine of the vine
from T'aiyuan in 1373, but prohibited its being presented again. The finest
grapes are produced in the district of Yukau-hien, where hills shield the
plain from north winds, and convert it into a garden many square miles in
extent. In the vintage season the best grapes sell for less than a farthing
a pound. [Mr. Theos. Sampson, in an article on "Grapes in China," writes
(Notes and Queries on China and Japan, April, 1869, p. 50): "The earliest
mention of the grape in Chinese literature appears to be contained in the
chapter on the nations of Central Asia, entitled Ta Yuan Chwan, or
description of Fergana, which forms part of the historical records
(Sze-Ki) of Sze-ma Tsien, dating from B.C. 100. Writing of the political
relations instituted shortly before this date by the Emperor Wu Ti with the
nations beyond the Western frontiers of China, the historian dwells at
considerable length, but unluckily with much obscurity, on the various
missions despatched westward under the leadership of Chang K'ien and
others, and mentions the grape vine in the following passage: - 'Throughout
the country of Fergana, wine is made from grapes, and the wealthy lay up
stores of wine, many tens of thousands of shih in amount, which may be
kept for scores of years without spoiling. Wine is the common beverage, and
for horses the mu-su is the ordinary pasture.
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