Ziliujing tushuo 自流井圖說

Ziliujing tushuo 自流井圖說, original title Ziliujing fengwu mingshi shuo 自流井風物名實說, is a book on the salt, oil and gas wells of Zigong 自貢, Sichuan, written during the late Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by Wu Dingli 吳鼎立 (fl. 1871), style Mingzhai 銘齋. He learned from the wells when he was district magistrate of Fushun 富順.

The salt wells of Zigong have been used since the Han period 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE). During the Tang period 唐 (618-907), the wells yielded a monthly amount of 3,660 shi 石 of salt (see weight and measures), and the Song dynasty 宋 (960-1279) was able to gain a daily tax income of 1,500 jin 斤 ("pounds") of salt. The deepest well reached down 250 zhang 丈 ("fathoms"). The local salt industry was well developed in the early nineteenth century, with 508 households working in the business of cooking down brine to gain pure salt. They used the natural gas from the nearby wells as fuel.

Figure 1. Illustration of a salt production site in the Ziliujing tushuo 自流井圖說

Figure 2. Tools used in the salt industry

The book explains the geographical distribution of the salt wells, the boring of shafts (zuan jing 鉆井), the elimination of problems (liao jing bing 療井病), the methods of gaining brine (lushui 鹵水) and cooking it down in salt pans (yanzao 鹽灶), and the business modes of the whole industry. The chapters on cooking brine (Shaoyanfa 燒鹽法) and water tubes (Shuijian 水梘) are treated as an appendix. The text is accompanied by several illustrations.

The text was initially included in the local gazetteer Fushun xian zhi 富順縣志 (juan 30) of 1872. The Siyuan Hall 思源堂 later published this chapter separately, together with other texts on the salt industry and "salt administration" (yanzheng 鹽政) of the region. This book had the title Ziliujing shuo 自流井說 or Ziliujing tushuo.