CHU SSU-PEN

 

Chu Ssu-pen (1273-1337) was a Chinese map-maker during the period of the Yuan Dynasty. In the decade between 1311 and 1320 he compiled a large roll-map of China and its surrounding regions according to the information available to him at the time.

Chu wrote in his preface that among the sources he consulted was the Yu Chi Ti, or Map of the Tracks of Yu, dated 1137. His choice was an important one because it established him in a more accurate tradition of Chinese map-making, based on a grid of squares to indicate distance. The scale adopted by this map was one side of each square equalling 100 li, approximately 33 miles.

A major concern for Chu was that the information from which his own map was to be drawn was reliable. It is uncertain how far the coverage of his new map actually extended. The original manuscript has since been lost, although his preface has survived. What is clear is that Chu expressed personal reservations about representing the regions beyond the Empire.

       "Regarding the foreign countries of the barbarians southeast of the South Sea and northwest of Mongolia, there is no means of investigating them because of their great distance, although they are continually sending tribute to the court. Those who speak of them are unable to say anything definite, while those who say something definite cannot be trusted; hence I am compelled to omit them here."

Chu's completed map was called Yu T'u, meaning Terrestial Map (literally 'Earth Vehicle'). This title suggests an intention, at least, to create a 'world map'. At something like seven feet square, it was also unwieldy to use. It remained in roll-map form, with rare copies made in manuscript, for the next two centuries. None of them have lasted up to the present day.

Fortunately, between 1545 and 1555 a Ming dynasty scholar called Lo Hung-hsien copied, revised and divided up Chu's map, republishing it by wood-block printing as Kuang Yu T'u, or Enlarged Terrestial Atlas. In his preface to this atlas, Lo explained his reasons for changing the format.

        "Chu Ssu-Pen's map was prepared by the method of indicating the the distances by a network of squares, and thus the actual geographic picture was faithful. Hence, even if one divided [the map] and put it together again, [the individual parts] in the east and west fit faultlessly together...His map was seven feet long and therefore inconvenient to unroll; I have therefore now arranged it in book form on the basis of its network of squares."

1. GENERAL MAP OF CHINA

In Lo's atlas, two sheets comprise the key map, using a grid-scale of 400 li (132 miles) to the square. The large dark band running from southwest to northeast is the Gobi Desert. To the east is the ocean, represented by 'angry lines'. 

The Yellow River is prominently marked. In the west its source in a gourd shaped lake is annotated by Chinese characters. The river's outlet into the Yellow Sea indicates that the map has been updated from Chu's 1320 manuscript. Prior to catastrophic floods around 1344 the Yellow River ran into the Bo-hai Sea, north of the Shantung Peninsular. (Similar disasters in the mid-nineteenth century restored it to this earlier course.)

2. MAPS OF BARBARIAN COUNTRIES IN THE SOUTHEAST AND SOUTHWEST SEAS

Chu Ssu-pen admitted that the grid-system was impractical for precise measurements over the ocean ― "currents in the outer seas are difficult to predict and so is the estimation of distance." Still, it is difficult to imagine how a distortion of this magnitude was achieved.

On the righthand sheet is the fairly recognisable coastline of China. The adjoining landmass on the lefthand sheet is the mainland of southern Asia. Near where this bulges out into the southwest sea is the large island of Sumatra, with the smaller island of Java next to it. At top left is the southern part of the African continent. Dotted throughout the wave-patterns are a score of island names in Chinese characters. The empty portions at the bottom of both maps are areas "totally unknown".

The identification of the Africa is reasonably certain. The island off the east coast is called San-pa Nu, probably designating the source of "Zanzibar Slaves". Characters in the centre next to the lake read as Sang-ku, apparently a Chinese transliteration of the Arabic term Zangua, meaning "Black People".

South east Asia is similarly indicated. Near the edge of the continent are marked Chan-cheng (Champa or Vietnam), Hsien-lo (Thailand), Mien-tien and Meng-to (Burma).

The main problem for Yuan dynasty mapmakers was that the earth was not flat. On the other hand, the skewing of geography may not have mattered to experienced seafarers. Drawing, like writing, proceeded from right to left. Charting began from where ships left port in China. Heading south, the mainland was always on the righthand side. What seems disorienting on paper was not necessarily so to a mariner. Captains used to thinking in terms of landward and seaward were not misled as long as their visual clues followed this pattern. Nautical focus was on the next port-of-call, not on appreciating the overall shape of the complete journey.

3.  MAP OF THE COUNTRIES OF THE NORTHWEST:  Hsi-Pei Pi Ti-Li T'u

Another source that Lo Hung-hsien drew on for his atlas was a linear map drawn at around the same time as Chu Ssu-pen was draughting his roll-map. Hsi-pei Pi Ti-li T'u, or The Countries of the Northwest was published in 1329 in History of Institutions of the Yuan Dynasty, or Yuan Ching Shih Ta Tien. It showed the north west land route of the Silk Road, following an idealistically long Great Wall toward the desert and mountains beyond. Lo appears to have extended this map and used the grid-system to place it within its geo-political context (as it applied during the Yuan Dynasty). 

The result is an improvement as far as relations between places is concerned. On land there was benefit to using a grid, although it gradually acquired bias and inaccuracy the further it moved away from a starting point in China.

It is worth repeating that the extent of Chu's original contribution, the Terrestial Map of 1320, is unknown. A lot of the information about the world outside of China proper was already known by then, but his reviser Lo undoubtedly had more which was added in 1555. 

The degree of Chu's influence on Chinese map-making traditions may be one way to guess-timate how much was Chu and how much is Lo. Around 1389-1390 a highly decorated map of China and the regions around the Empire was released.  

Da Ming hunyi tu, The Amalgamated Map of the Great Ming Empire, shows the tell-tale signature of two of its antecedents ― Chu's Yu T'u, and the Map of the Vast Reach of China's Moral Teaching, or Shengjiao guangbei tu,  published ca. 1330. The latter map, like Chu's, is "no longer extant", so exact comparisons are not possible.

What Da Ming hunyi tu immediately makes obvious however, is that the awkward bulge of south Asia, and the corruption of perspective towards India, Arabia and Africa, was evident well before Lo's editing in 1550. A certain consistency in error suggests that Chu's contribution to Lo's atlas was considerably more than the genius of the grid-scheme.

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REFERENCES:

KS Chang, 1970, 'Africa and the Indian Ocean in Chinese Maps of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries', Imago Mundi, 24, 21-30. <jstor.org>

CS Chen, 1978, 'The Historical Development of Cartography in China', <journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.117/030913257800200106>

Jim Siebold, 2023, 'Kuang Yu T'u or the Mongol Atlas', <myoldmaps.com/late-medieval-maps-1300/227-the-countries-of-the/227-kuang-yu-tu.pdf>

Jim Siebold, 2022, 'Early World Maps in China', <myoldmaps.com/book-3-world-maps-in-china1.pdf>