Li Daoyuan's former residence is in Dongdaoyuan Village, Zhuozhou City, Hebei Province. There is also a Li Daoyuan Road in the south of Zhuozhou.
Among Li Daoyuan's five brothers, Daoyuan is the leader. He inherited the post of Yongning Hou from his father. Xiaochang was killed in Guanzhong (now Linzhang County, Shaanxi Province) in the third year of Northern Wei Dynasty (527). Li Daoyuan was born in a bureaucratic family, and his father Li Fan was young and promising. During the Taizu period, he worked in the East Palace and later became an outstanding strategist with outstanding talents. He was a general in Pingtung and a secretariat in Qingzhou. Li Daoyuan also served as a central official in Pingcheng (the capital of the early Northern Wei Dynasty, now Datong City, Shanxi Province) and Luoyang (the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty moved to the south here in 493 AD), and served as a local official for many times. He also served as a long-established East in Jizhou Town (now Jixian County, Hebei Province) and Luyang County (now Henan Province).
In the first half of Li Daoyuan's life, the Northern Wei Dynasty was in its heyday. In 439 AD, after the Northern Wei Emperor Mao unified the North, the national strength of the Northern Wei Dynasty became stronger and stronger after many emperors, such as Xianwen and Wencheng, vigorously governed the country, and the active reform of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Li Daoyuan also followed Emperor Xiaowen and others to realize the great cause of reunification. However, after the death of Emperor Xiaowen, 500 years of domestic contradictions in the Northern Wei Dynasty began to rise again and gradually declined. By 527, six towns rebelled and the four sides were in turmoil. In the eventful autumn of the country, Li Daoyuan was generously martyred. Lonely geese are singing in the sky, and birds are singing in Qinshan. The meteor flashed and a generation of heroes fell.
Li Daoyuan was "cautious in law enforcement" and "known for his fierceness" during his official career, so he was quite powerful and feared by the royal family. In the third year of Xiaochang in the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 527), while Li Daoyuan was on his way to Guanju, Xiao Baoyu, the secretariat of Yongzhou, was encouraged by King Runan and sent people to besiege Li Daoyuan and his party in Yinpan Post Office (now east of Lintong County, Shaanxi Province). The pavilion is on the mountain and there is no water to eat. After digging more than ten feet of wells, there is still no water. Finally exhausted, he was killed with his younger brother Li Daojun and his two sons.
Li Daoyuan has been fond of sightseeing since he was a teenager. When he was in Qingzhou with his father, he once traveled all over Shandong with his friends. I have been to many places since I became an official. Every time I go to a place, I have to visit the local places of interest, pay attention to the current and topography, trace back to the source, read a lot of geographical works in my spare time, and gradually accumulate rich geographical knowledge. Throughout his life, he made a lot of investigations, textual research and research on China's physical geography, and wrote a masterpiece of geography-Notes on Water Classics, which made great contributions to China's ancient geographical science.
Sang Qin was a famous scholar and geographer in Han Dynasty, and he wrote Water Mirror and other books.
Water Mirror, written in the Three Kingdoms period, is a book devoted to the study of rivers and waterways, and records the China 137 major rivers. The original text is more than 10 thousand words, the text is quite short, and the context and details of the waterway are not clear. Li Daoyuan believes that ancient books should be researched on the basis of the investigation of existing geographical conditions, and then the frequently changing geographical features should be recorded as detailed and accurate as possible. Under the guidance of this idea, Li Daoyuan made up his mind to interpret the water mirror.
Li Daoyuan paid great attention to on-the-spot investigation and investigation in the process of interpreting water mirrors. At the same time, he also read many predecessors' works and many accurate and detailed maps. According to statistics, Li Daoyuan consulted 437 kinds of books when he wrote Notes on Shui Jing. After a long and arduous effort, Li Daoyuan finally finished his famous book "Notes on Water Classics". Notes on Water Classics * * * has forty volumes (the original book lost five volumes in the Song Dynasty, and it is still forty volumes today, which was adapted by later generations), with more than 300,000 words, which is an unprecedented geographical masterpiece at that time. It is nominally an annotation to the water mirror, but in fact it is a re-creation on the basis of the water mirror. This book describes 1252 rivers, and related historical sites, anecdotes, myths and legends. , nearly 1000 more than the original, the text has increased by more than 20 times, and the content is much richer than the original water mirror. It is the most comprehensive and systematic comprehensive geographical work in China. The book also records a large number of stone tablet ink and fishing songs and folk songs, with gorgeous words and beautiful language, which has high literary value.
Zhu's writing style is different from Hehe's geography. It takes waterway as the key link, describes the geographical situation of various places in detail, and creates a new form of ancient comprehensive geographical works. Shui Jing Zhu covers a wide range. Geographically speaking, although Li Daoyuan lived in the period of confrontation between the Northern and Southern Dynasties, he did not confine his vision to a corner ruled by the Northern Wei Dynasty, but seized the natural phenomenon of rivers and waterways and made a detailed record of the national geographical situation. Not only that, the book also talks about some foreign rivers, which shows that the author is also very concerned about foreign geography. In terms of content, the book not only describes the hydrological conditions of rivers in detail, but also comprehensively describes other natural phenomena in each basin, such as geology, landforms, soil, climate, folk customs of products, the rise and fall of cities, historical sites, myths and legends, etc. Therefore, Biography of Water Mirror is the first comprehensive and systematic geographical work written by China before the 6th century. It is of great reference value to the study of ancient history and geography of China.
Notes on Water Classics is a geographical masterpiece with great scientific value, and it is also a unique travel note of mountains and rivers. With full enthusiasm, vigorous writing and delicate language, Li Daoyuan vividly described the magnificent mountains and rivers of the motherland and showed his love and praise for the motherland. Li Daoyuan wrote a lot in his life, including Notes on Water Mirror, Thirteen Records and Seven Covenants. However, only the notes about the water mirror have been handed down.
Li Daoyuan (466 or 472-527) liked sightseeing when he was a teenager. Later, when he became an official, he traveled all over the country. Every time he visited places of interest, he also carefully surveyed the topography of the water surface and learned about coastal geography, landforms, soil, climate, people's production and life, and regional changes. He found that the ancient geography book "Water Mirror" not only lacked accurate records of the ins and outs of large and small rivers, but also changed the names of some rivers due to the changes of the times and the rise and fall of cities, but it was not supplemented and explained in the book. Li Daoyuan then personally annotated the water mirror.
In order to write notes about water mirrors, he read more than 400 books, consulted all the maps, studied a large number of cultural relics, and personally went to the field to check the records in the books. Water mirror has 65,438+037 rivers and 65,438+100,000 words. After Li Daoyuan's annotation, the number of river maps increased to 1252, with * * * 300,000 words, 20 times more than the original. The book describes the origin and flow direction of rivers, the physical geography and economic geography of each basin, as well as volcanoes, hot springs and water conservancy projects. This book is beautiful and vivid, and it can also be said to be a literary work. Because of its great value in the history of China's scientific and cultural development, many scholars in the past dynasties specially studied it and formed "Sydney".