馬行 · 潘樓街
The great commercial spine of Entries 8–13, reopened as festival ground.
DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷六
正月
Three days of guanpu.
Volume VI opens the festival calendar with a permission. On New Year's day the Kaifeng prefecture permitted three days of 關撲 — chance-based market play — and the capital turned its gates and streets into a fair: colored stalls from Maxing to Fengqiu Gate, and by evening, women of wealthy households filled the viewing grounds and market shops — a custom no one remarked on. The entry also notes that poorer residents put on clean clothes for the season.
WALK THE MARKET ↓00 / THE FESTIVAL MARKET
A fair distributed across the city.
The entry names the market's stations in order — Maxing, Panlou Street, outside Song Gate, outside Liang Gate at Yong Road, outside Fengqiu Gate, and the whole southern band — then lists what the colored stalls sold. The page maps them relationally, exactly as the text does: directions and gates, no invented coordinates.
宋門外 · 梁門外踴路
Outside Song Gate, and outside Liang Gate along Yong Road — the named streets of the ring.
封丘門外 · 州南一帶
Outside Fengqiu Gate and the whole belt south of the prefecture — the fair's full span, stated as a band.
冠梳
珠翠
頭面
衣著
花朵
領抹
靴鞋
玩好
01 / EVENING, AND WHO IT BELONGED TO
The streets after dark.
Toward evening the entry shifts its lens: the wealthy households' women went freely to the gambling-stalls and viewing grounds, entered the shops, and dined out — a customary practice, and no one laughed at it. The page reports this as TEXT and leaves the framing to the reader.
Elite women attended the chance-stalls, entered the viewing grounds, and dined in the market shops.
It had become customary — a practice, the entry says, at which nobody marveled anymore.
The same three-day pattern recurred at Cold Food and at the winter solstice: New Year is one instance of a pattern.
Even the poor put on clean, fresh clothes and exchanged wine and congratulations — the page keeps them in the frame.
1. The permission, and the market that followed it.
正月一日年節，開封府放關撲三日。士庶自早互相慶賀，坊巷以食物、動使、果實、柴炭之類，歌叫關撲。如馬行、潘樓街，州東宋門外，州西梁門外踴路，州北封丘門外，及州南一帶，皆結彩棚，鋪陳冠梳、珠翠、頭面、衣著、花朵、領抹、靴鞋、玩好之類，間列舞場歌館，車馬交馳。向晚，貴家婦女縱賞關賭，入場觀看，入市店飲宴，慣習成風，不相笑訝。至寒食冬至三日亦如此。小民雖貧者，亦須新潔衣服，把酒相酬爾。
WORKING TRANSLATION
On the first day of the first month, the New Year festival: the Kaifeng prefecture permitted guanpu for three days. High and low exchanged congratulations from early morning, and through the lanes the stalls cried and gambled their goods — food, utensils, fruit, charcoal. At Maxing and Panlou Street, outside Song Gate on the east, outside Liang Gate on the west along Yong Road, outside Fengqiu Gate on the north, and all along the south of the prefecture, colored booths were erected, displaying combs and hairpins, pearls and kingfisher feathers, head-ornaments, clothing, flowers, collar-pieces, boots and shoes, curiosities of every kind — interspersed with dancing grounds and singing houses, carriages and horses crossing and recrossing. Toward evening the women of the great households gave themselves to the guanpu stakes and the sights, entered the viewing grounds, went into the market shops to feast — habit had made it the custom, and no one thought it strange. At Cold Food and at the winter solstice, the same three days ran likewise. Though the common people were poor, they too had to wear fresh, clean clothes and exchange wine and greetings.
GALOK READING
The sentence that opens Volume VI is an administrative formula in miniature: a named authority (開封府), an act of permission (放), a duration (三日). What follows is what a permission does to a city — stalls cry their goods into lotteries, gates become fairgrounds, and the whole geography is recited as a route. The page reads the passage as a regulated exception, a temporary festival permission, and keeps the institutional claim at that strength: the entry authorizes nothing beyond the three days it names.
Two terms, locked against their worst readings.
A chance-based mode of selling — stake and draw, gambling-flavored commerce. The mistranslation that has the prefecture releasing prisoners is a lexical error and is not used anywhere on this page.
Yong Road is a place: an earlier volume uses 踴路街 as a street name. The reading of 踴路 as a description of crowding is rejected.
Gutenberg prints 封丘門外; the Siku transcription prints 封邱. The page keeps the Gutenberg form and records the variant — the gate is the same either way.
Chance-based selling and play — stakes and draws, permitted for the festival term.
The prefecture's act: permitting the play for an explicit term.
A street name, cross-referenced from the western districts.
The festival stalls, displaying the market's wares.
The fair's luxury trades, from hair-jewels to collar silks.
Cold Food and the solstice ran the same three-day pattern.
Four entries of Volume V watched the city work, play, marry and raise children; Volume VI begins with the calendar that let all of it out at once. For three permitted days the named streets and gate approaches became festival markets, the stalls became lotteries, and the viewing grounds and market shops drew women of the great households toward evening; poorer residents joined the season in clean clothes and mutual greetings. The festival calendar starts here, and the Reading Room follows it from the next entry on.
開封府放關撲三日。03 / SOURCE TRAIL
The permission is textual. The geography stays relational.
The primary text is read against the Siku-family witness (Kanripo KR2k0111, 卷六) and the Gutenberg transcription #24137. 關撲 and 踊路 are locked per the research lock against their common mistranslations; the market stations are mapped only as the text maps them — by direction and gate.