Temple attendants report dawn through neighborhoods.
DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷三
天曉諸人入市
Before dawn.
The city wakes through sound. At the fifth watch, temple attendants strike iron plates or wooden fish; court-goers and market people rise; gates, food, freight and street cries follow before full daylight.
FOLLOW THE DAWN SIGNAL ↓聲SIGNAL起WAKE市MARKET
01 / PREDAWN CLOCK
The city wakes by sound, then by movement.
五更 remains a historical watch-time expression. The sequence below follows Meng's ordering without forcing a fixed modern clock conversion.
FIFTH WATCH / SIGNAL
The first urban event is audible.
Temple attendants strike iron plates or wooden fish and move door to door reporting dawn. Meng adds that each has a territorial section for daytime alms.
02 / CITY STARTUP
By daylight, several supply systems have already crossed the page.
The text moves quickly from signals to prepared food, slaughter supply, fruit, printed pictures, flour transport and vendors serving the court route.
Food is already being sold near gates, bridges and markets.
Wash water and prepared hot drinks or medicinal preparations appear before daylight.
Slaughter-house supply enters market in striking volume.
Fruit gathers near Zhuque Gate and west of Zhouqiao; paper pictures trade there too.
Flour arrives from outside the gates by cart or pack animal and continues entering until daylight.
1. A lost street clock leaves another signal in its place.
每日交五更，諸寺院行者打鐵牌子或木魚循門報曉，亦各分地分，日間求化。諸趨朝入市之人，聞此而起。
WORKING TRANSLATION
At the fifth watch each day, attendants from temples struck iron plates or wooden fish and went from door to door reporting dawn. They had their respective areas and sought alms there by day. People heading to court or entering the markets heard the signal and rose.
GALOK READING
The chapter begins with coordinated sound. The uploaded Zhonghua annotated edition places this beside the earlier decline of Kaifeng's street-drum system, making the temple signal especially significant as an urban time cue.
The signal belongs to a changing city.
Yang Chunqiao's annotation cites Northern Song evidence that the older street-drum system had already faded from everyday Kaifeng. In Meng's remembered city, temple attendants carrying iron plates or wooden fish mark the transition into daily activity.
EARLIERStreet drums regulate opening and closingBY LATE 11CStreet-drum sound has fadedMENG'S CITY鐵牌 · 木魚 · 循門報曉
This is a historical contextualization from the annotated edition and cited Northern Song material. The passage itself gives the temple signal directly.
2. Open gates become food, water and light.
諸門橋市井已開，如瓠羹店門首坐一小兒，叫饒骨頭，間有灌肺及炒肺。酒店多點燈燭沽賣，每分不過二十文，並粥飯點心。亦間或有賣洗面水，煎點湯茶藥者，直至天明。
WORKING TRANSLATION
Gates, bridges and markets were already open. Food shops, wine shops lit by lamps or candles, porridge, rice, snacks, wash water and prepared hot drinks or medicinal preparations were available before daylight. Meng gives a price expression of no more than twenty wen per portion for the wine-shop line.
GALOK READING
Keep the historical units. 二十文 stays twenty wen; the page does not invent a modern currency conversion. The phrase 叫饒骨頭 is preserved rather than flattened into a modern commodity label.
3. Freight crosses the gates while the court route fills with cries.
其殺豬羊作坊，每人擔豬羊及車子上市，動即百數。如果木亦集於朱雀門外及州橋之西，謂之果子行。紙畫兒亦在彼處，行販不絕。其賣麥麪，每秤作一布袋，謂之「一宛」；或三五秤作一宛，用太平車或驢馬馱之，從城外守門入城貨賣，至天明不絕。更有御街州橋至南內前趁朝賣藥及飲食者，吟叫百端。
WORKING TRANSLATION
Pork and mutton supply, fruit, paper pictures and flour all move toward market. Flour is bagged under the term 一宛, with variable quantities described in the same passage, and arrives by Taiping cart or pack animal. Along the court route, medicine and food vendors use many forms of patterned street cry.
GALOK READING
The chapter ends where it began: in sound. 吟叫百端 turns commodity circulation into an audible city. A Song explanation preserved in 《事物紀原》 says different goods had distinct vocal patterns.
04 / VARIABLE PACKAGE TERM
一宛 should not become a fake fixed weight.
Meng first says one weighed amount could be placed in one cloth bag and called an 一宛, then says three or five weighed amounts could also make one 一宛. The page therefore treats it as a packaging or commercial term with variable content.
1?每秤作一布袋3–5?或三五秤作一宛RESULTVARIABLE CONTENT
Several small words materially affect how the dawn sequence is read.
The common transcription, the Siku-family text and modern annotated editions do not always divide or write these phrases identically. Galok keeps the working wording visible and flags the unstable points.
WORKING TEXT地分 · 湯茶藥
↔OTHER WITNESSES / EDITIONS地方 · 湯藥等異讀
WORKING TEXT擔豬羊 · 守門
↔COLLATION QUESTIONS擔／檐 · 守門語義
For 守門, the uploaded annotated edition understands the phrase as waiting for the city gate to open before entering to sell.
Source register
Wikisource / common Volume III text ↗
Chinese Text Project / Volume III ↗
Yang Chunqiao, annot. & trans., Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, Zhonghua Book Company, 2020 — consulted secondary edition.
THEN IT COMES TO YOUR DOOR.
Entry 27 leaves the market route and follows the people who feed animals, repair objects, carry water, sell goods, entertain lanes and maintain drainage.