Across four volumes and sixty chapters, Records of Yu’s Traces tells the spiritual history of China’s mountains and rivers.
The title draws on the Zuo Zhuan: “Vast are the traces of Yu, divided into the Nine Provinces.” Yu’s traces are the lands where Chinese civilization first dawned, the starting point from which the Nine Provinces were demarcated. The Qinling Mountains, the Grand Canal, Caishiji, and the Qinhuai River all lie within Yu’s traces; the Qin and Han, Sui and Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties all came after them. A thousand years of rise and decline unfolded within the Nine Provinces; across ten thousand miles of land, all bear the traces left by Yu.
It uses the historian’s craft to write a novel, geographical coordinates to chart the rise and fall of dynasties, and the fates of its characters to reflect their times. No place is without its history, no event without its sources, no thought untouched by concern for the homeland. It never utters the words “Chinese civilization,” yet civilization is present throughout.
