Great-grandfather Xu Jing was a rich man in Jiangyin. In the 12th year of Hongzhi, he was imprisoned with Tang Yin for "cheating in the exam". By the time Xu Xiake arrived, his home had fallen. Xu Xiake traveled all over the country, trudged in many wilderness areas that he had never been to before, and often slept in the wilderness. Footprints cover Beijing, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shanxi, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and other 16 provinces. Wherever they go, they explore seclusion, seek secrets, and leave travel notes to record observed phenomena, humanities, geography, animals and plants.
In particular, Xu Xiake made profound research and records on limestone landforms (karst landforms, karst landforms), including the distribution of karst caves, and made detailed textual research on the causes of stalactites, stalagmites, karst ditches, stone buds and Liang Shi, becoming the first person in the world. At the same time, the source of the Yangtze River was investigated, and the wrong judgment of "Minshan River Diversion" in ancient literature was corrected.
In the 13th year of Chongzhen in Ming Dynasty (1640), he got sick in Yunnan and his feet were unable to walk. It was sent back to Jiangyin, Jiangsu by the local magistrate in a sedan chair. Before his death, he asked his nephew Ji Ming to sort out the manuscript, and Ji He edited his travel notes into a book. In the second year after his death, the Qing army attacked Jiangyin, Ji helped defend the city, and the whole family was killed. Most of the travel manuscripts were burned in the fire. The remaining manuscripts sent by Ji Huiming and Xu Li were edited into Xu Xiake's Travels, and Pan Lei, a native of Wujiang in the early Qing Dynasty, prefaced Xu Xiake's Travels. 1980, Chu Shaotang and Wu Yingshou collated this book. Its contents include geography, geomorphology, geology, hydrology, climate, plants, agriculture, mining, handicrafts, transportation, places of interest, customs and customs, etc., and it still has high scientific and literary value.
Huang Daozhou, Wen, Qian, Xiang Yu, Chen, etc. often sang with Xu Xiake. In the first year of Chongzhen (1628), Xu Xiake visited Huang Daozhou and Zheng Zhi in Fujian. Chen wrote an epitaph for Xu Xiake. Chu Shaotang and Xu Xiake's travel itinerary collection.