| Comment | Rem.: In 1835 Zhou Jihua was obliged to leave his post of magistrate of Hui county in Henan (see under Gongcheng congzheng lu) because he was related by marriage to Zhu Shu 朱澍, the newly appointed provincial judge. He was transferred to Jiangsu, where he held several magistracies, both acting and substantive. The present work consists of proclamations, orders, and correspondences issued when he was magistrate of Xinghua 興化 (Yangzhou prefecture). (Hailing in the title of the work refers to the name of the county of which the territory of Xinghua was part before it was created during the Five Dynasties period.) Included in the collection are formal reports (xiang 詳) to superiors on topics such as water management; moral exhortations and admonitions to the general populace, to yamen clerks and runners, and to women; prohibitions on various types of bad behavior such as pettifogging, gambling, banditry; and numerous entries concerning the sale and use of opium. There are also drafts of his lectures to the local students, as well as accounts of the reconstruction of the temples of Confucius and of the God of Literature. One can see that Zhou transferred to his new posting the experience he had accumulated in Henan; the contrasts between the population and administration of the two localities can also be gathered from a comparison between the two works.
|
