Abstract:
People differ in their bases for the historical evolution of urban space form of Yulin, which has caused many erroneous judgments. According to reliable historical sources, the city walls of Yulin were built in the 2nd year of the imperial title of Zhengtong, namely, in 1437, and in the early days of the imperial title of Chenghua Yu Zijun rebuilt the north and south city walls. The walled city was expanded by Huang Lu in the 22th year of the imperial title of Chenghua(1486), was southwards extended by Xiong Xiu in the 9th year of the imperial title of Hongzhi(1496), and was further southwards extended by Deng Zhang to the location of the present south walls of Yulin in the 10th year of the imperial title of Zhengde(1515). Through an investigation of historical facts, the abovementioned there should “three expansions” of the city walls of Yulin just as was stated by the records in the Ming Dynasty. The fact that some changes happened to the records about Yu Zijun's construction of the city of Yulin shows that the scholars in the Qing Dynasty misinterpreted historical materials by ignoring primary historical sources and that the contemporary scholars should pay attention to the “histogeographic background” offered by different historical materials.
