DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷三
Meng ends Volume III at household scale. Animal feed, repair, water, fuel, performance, doorstep trade, low-income housing and spring drainage work reveal a metropolis maintained through countless small services.
ENTER THE LANE ↓This is a reading structure built from the order and spatial cues in Meng's catalog. It is a sectional editorial model, not a measured reconstruction of one literal lane.
Horse fodder, dog feed, cat food and small fish sit beside metal repair, barrel hooping, shoe work, headwear repair, water carrying, lacquer work, jewelry work, wood chopping, fan handles, fuel, summer felt washing and well cleaning.
Retired military musicians play in open space, draw children and women from the neighborhood and scatter sweets. Meng records the practices as 賣梅子 and 把街.
Meat, offal, poultry, fish, shellfish, prepared food, aromatics, fruit, clothing, utensils, metalware, boxes and ceramics are sold at household doors. Some goods also enter 博賣 or 撲, coin-toss retail mechanisms described by later annotation.
Rear streets and vacant spaces contain compact grouped dwellings called 院子. Meng associates them with ordinary residents and small foods such as steamed pears and dates, yellow cakes, leftover steamed cakes and sprouted beans.
Each spring, laborers under official supervision dredge city channels. Excavated mud goes into separate pits called 泥盆; officials inspect the work before the pits are covered. Meng closes with a warning about moving through the city on dark nights.
It combines recurring household service, territorial delivery, mobile retail, entertainment, low-income housing and municipal public works. The common thread is proximity to everyday life.
Daily grass for horses; 餳糟 for dogs; cat food and small fish for cats.
Metal vessels, fittings, barrels, shoes, belts and headwear stay in use through specialized labor.
Water carriers have their own service areas by neighborhood and lane.
Some services are tied to season and physical conditions.
Doorstep selling includes ordinary purchase and gambling-like promotional mechanisms.
Municipal drainage maintenance brings labor, inspection and temporary street hazards.
若養馬，則有兩人日供切草；養犬則供餳糟；養貓則供貓食並小魚。其錮路、釘餃、箍桶、修整動使、掌鞋、刷腰帶、修襆頭帽子、補角冠。日供打香印者，則管定輔席人家眚額，時節即印施佛像等。
Keeping animals brings recurring supply: cut grass for horses, 餳糟 for dogs, and cat food with small fish for cats. Meng then runs through repair work for household objects, footwear, belts and headwear, followed by recurring incense-seal and printed-image services.
The famous cat line belongs inside a much larger ecology. Its importance is structural: even a small household routine can depend on specialized urban supply.
The text is unusually concrete. Yang Chunqiao glosses 餳糟 as residue from making malt sugar.
其供人家打水者，各有地分坊巷，及有使漆、打釵環、荷大斧斫柴、換扇子柄、供香餅子、炭團，夏月則有洗氈淘井者，舉意皆在目前。
People who supplied households with water each had their own assigned or customary neighborhood area. Meng adds lacquer work, jewelry work, wood chopping, fan-handle replacement, fuel supply, and in summer, felt washing and well cleaning.
各有地分坊巷 is one of the strongest clues in the chapter. It suggests territorial organization in everyday service without requiring us to invent a modern franchise or utility-company model.
或軍營放停，樂人動鼓樂於空閑，就坊巷引小兒婦女觀看，散糖果子之類，謂之「賣梅子」，又謂之「把街」。每日如宅舍宮院前，則有就門賣羊肉、頭肚、腰子、白腸、鶉兔魚蝦、退毛雞鴨、蛤蜊、螃蟹、雜燠、香藥果子，博賣冠梳領抹、頭面衣著、動使銅鐵器、衣箱、磁器之類。亦有撲上件物事者，謂之「勘宅」。
Former military musicians play in open spaces, attract neighborhood audiences and scatter sweets. At residences, vendors sell food and household goods directly at the door. The passage also records 博賣 and 撲, forms of gambling-like sale, with 勘宅 naming one such practice.
Yang Chunqiao's annotation explains 博賣 and 撲 through coin-toss mechanisms. This is secondary explanation, so the mechanism is shown separately from Meng's wording.
The annotated edition describes a six-coin throw used in 撲: goods and value are agreed, coins determine the outcome, and the result changes whether the buyer takes the goods or pays. Galok presents this as a secondary-source mechanism diagram.
No interactive gambling simulation is used. The point is to explain a historical sales mechanism, not gamify it.
其後街或閑空處團轉蓋屋，向背聚居，謂之「院子」，皆小民居止，每日賣蒸梨棗、黃糕麋、宿蒸餅、發牙豆之類。每遇春時，宮中差人夫監淘在城渠，別開坑盛淘出者泥，謂之「泥盆」，候官差人來檢視了方蓋覆。夜間出入，月黑宜照管也。
Compact grouped housing in rear streets or vacant spaces housed ordinary residents selling simple foods. In spring, laborers were sent under official supervision to dredge city channels. Mud was placed in separate pits, inspected, then covered. Meng ends with a practical warning for dark nights.
Administrative maintenance has friction. The uploaded annotated edition cites Song evidence for annual drainage work and for people falling into open works. The system is organized, physical, disruptive and sometimes dangerous.
《宋史·河渠志》 records recurring spring drainage work in the capital and official supervision. Yang Chunqiao also cites Song accounts of pedestrians and examinees falling into open drainage works.
Terms around metal repair, footwear, headwear, household plaques, 賣梅子／把街, 勘宅 and drainage deserve witness-by-witness caution. The page avoids silently modernizing them.
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.
Thirteen entries move from specialist streets to institutions, markets, freight, money, labor, safety, dawn supply and household-scale service. Volume IV changes the lens again.