Waizhusi looks like a bureaucratic catalog until the nouns begin to accumulate. Wine, cattle, textiles, weapons, timber, kilns, carts, camels, elephants, medicine, coal, tea and treasure all require a place, staff and route. Then Meng gives numbers: more than fifty grain stores and more than twenty fodder yards. The list becomes urban metabolism.
1. Outside the palace, government becomes a supply chain.
外諸司：左右金吾街仗司、法酒庫、內酒坊、牛羊司、乳酪院、儀鸞司（帳設局也）、車輅院、供奉庫、雜物庫、雜賣務、東西作坊、萬全（造軍器所）、修內司、文思院上下界、綾錦院、文繡院、軍器所、上下竹木務、箔場、車營、致遠務、騾務、駝坊、象院、作坊物料庫、東西窯務、內外物庫、油醋庫、京城守具所、鞍轡庫、養馬曰左右騏驥院、天駟十監、河南北十炭場、四熟藥局、內外柴炭庫、軍頭引見司、架子營（樓店務、店宅務）、榷貨務、都茶場、大宗正司、左藏、大觀、元豐、宣和等庫、編估局、打套所。
The outer departments included offices for street guards and ceremonial equipment; official wine and brewing; cattle, sheep and dairy; tents and furnishings; imperial vehicles; supply and miscellaneous stores; government sales; eastern and western workshops; weapons manufacture; palace repairs; the Wensi workshops; silk and embroidery institutes; military equipment; timber, metal foil, carts and transport; mule, camel and elephant facilities; materials stores and kilns; oil and vinegar; city-defense equipment; saddles and bridles; imperial horse establishments; coal yards; public medicine offices; firewood and charcoal stores; military personnel administration; property and shop administration; monopoly goods and tea; the imperial clan; treasuries; valuation offices; and packing or casing work.
The list crosses boundaries that a modern reader might separate into ministries, factories, warehouses, veterinary facilities, utilities, retail regulation and military logistics. Meng does not pause to theorize the system. He simply records how many specialized nodes the capital needed.
Animals deserve attention. Horses, mules, camels and elephants appear beside carts, saddles and fodder. Transport capacity is partly an animal infrastructure, with its own yards, feed requirements, handlers and equipment.
法酒庫 · 內酒坊 · 牛羊司 · 乳酪院 · 油醋庫
Provisioning court and state demand with processed food, drink and animal products.
東西作坊 · 文思院 · 綾錦院 · 文繡院 · 竹木務 · 窯務
Textiles, craft production, construction materials, ceramics and specialist manufacture.
車輅院 · 車營 · 致遠務 · 騾務 · 駝坊 · 象院 · 騏驥院
Vehicles, draft and riding animals, harness and the institutions needed to keep them moving.
萬全 · 軍器所 · 京城守具所 · 鞍轡庫
Weapons manufacture, city-defense equipment and military transport hardware.
十炭場 · 柴炭庫 · 四熟藥局
Urban heat and medical supply appear as organized public provisioning, not incidental commerce.
榷貨務 · 都茶場 · 左藏 · 諸庫 · 編估局
Monopoly goods, tea, stored value and official valuation connect logistics to fiscal government.
2. More than fifty granaries turn the river system into a food network.
諸米麥等：自州東虹橋元豐倉、順成倉，東水門裏廣濟、裏河折中、外河折中、富國、廣盈、萬盈、永豐、濟遠等倉，陳州門裏麥倉子，州北夷門山、五丈河諸倉，約共有五十餘所。日有支納下卸，即有下卸，指軍兵士支遣，即有袋家每人肩兩石布袋。遇有支遣，倉前成市。
For rice, wheat and other grain, Meng names stores around the eastern Rainbow Bridge, the East Water Gate, the Chen Zhou Gate, Yimenshan to the north and the Five-Zhang River district. Altogether, he says, there were more than fifty granary sites. Receipts and distributions happened daily. Soldiers handled unloading, while professional sack carriers moved cloth sacks, each man shouldering two shi. Whenever grain was issued, a market formed in front of the granaries.
The granaries are distributed around transport corridors rather than concentrated in one monumental complex. Meng names the Rainbow Bridge, water gates and the Five-Zhang River because food storage is tied to movement.
The sentence “a market formed in front of the granaries” is the economic consequence. Public distribution produces private opportunity: carriers, food sellers and other small traders gather around predictable flows of workers and recipients.
五十餘所
Meng's approximate count of grain-storage sites across the capital.
二十餘所
Grass yards near the newer outer city, fed by winter deliveries from surrounding villages.
每人肩兩石
The text describes specialist sack carriers moving two-shi loads on the shoulder; the exact physical weight of a shi varied by period and commodity, so Galok leaves the historical unit untranslated.
The Palace Museum describes the Qingming scroll's Bian River district as a water-and-land transport junction filled with cargo vessels, carts, pack animals and port labor. Museum research has also identified a riverside building group in the painting as a granary and grain-boat wharf. This supports the logistical character of Meng's description, while the painting should not be treated as a precise map of the fifty-plus named granaries. Palace Museum / Qingming scroll ↗
3. Winter fodder turns the edge of the capital into a traffic jam.
近新城有草場二十餘所。每遇冬月，諸鄉納粟稈草，牛車闐塞道路，車尾相銜，數千萬輛不絕，場內堆積如山。諸軍打請，營在州北，即往州南倉，不許雇人般擔，並要親自肩來，祖宗之法也。
Near the newer city were more than twenty fodder yards. Each winter, villages delivered millet stalks and grass. Ox carts clogged the roads, tail to tail in an apparently endless line, while the yards accumulated piles like mountains. When military units drew their provisions, even units camped north of the city had to go to southern granaries. They were forbidden to hire others to carry the loads and had to shoulder them themselves — an ancestral regulation, Meng says.
This is the least glamorous image in Volume I and one of the most useful: state capacity looks like ox carts blocking a road. The capital's scale is visible in congestion, storage space and repetitive manual handling.
The rule forcing soldiers to carry their own issued grain also exposes friction inside the system. A unit's camp could be north of the city while its assigned warehouse was south. Administrative control wins over travel efficiency, and the burden is transferred to bodies walking across the capital.
Entries 01–06 move from walls to old-city gates, rivers, the palace, inner offices and finally the outer supply network. The first volume therefore builds Kaifeng as a physical operating system before Volume II enters imperial avenues, street districts, night markets, restaurants and food.