| History of Ming | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 明史 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 明史 | ||||||||||||
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TheHistory of Ming is the final official Chinese history included in theTwenty-Four Histories. It consists of 332 volumes and covers the history of theMing dynasty from 1368 to 1644. It was written by a number of officials commissioned by the court ofQing dynasty, withZhang Tingyu as the lead editor. The compilation started in the era of theShunzhi Emperor and was completed in 1739 in the era of theQianlong Emperor, though most of the volumes were written in the era of theKangxi Emperor.
The sinologistEndymion Wilkinson writes that theMingshi, the second longest of theTwenty-Four Histories, after theHistory of Song, is "generally reckoned to be one of the best of theHistories and one of the easiest to read."[1]
After the Qing dynasty seized control ofBeijing andNorth China, the CensorZhao Jiding (趙繼鼎) was asked to compile the History of Ming in 1645 (the second year of theShunzhi Emperor). In May 1645, the court of Qing dynasty established the committee consisted of the Grand Secretary Feng Quan, Li Jiantai, Fan Wencheng, Gang Lin, and Qi Chongge as the presidents to operate the compilation of the History of Ming. In the same year, the presidents nominated the vice presidents and compilers, and also nominated seven Zhang Guans, ten transcribers of Manchu language, and thirty-six transcribers of Chinese language to lift the curtain on compiling the History of Ming.[citation needed]
The Qing deliberately excluded references and information that showed the Jurchens (Manchus) as subservient to the Ming dynasty from theHistory to hide their former subservient relationship. TheMing Veritable Records were not used to source content onJurchens during Ming rule in the History of Ming because of this.[2]
The official compiling ofHistory of Ming started on May 2, 1645. At that time, which is the early years that the Qing first entered and hosted[clarification needed] theCentral Plain. With the obvious purpose of compiling theHistory of Ming, the Qing dynasty intended to declare the collapse of Ming, however, the court ofHongguang (founded by the Ming imperial clan) with capital ofNanjing was antagonistic to the Qing, and the compiling ofHistory of Ming was the announcement of inexistence of Hongguang Court.On May 15, the Army of Qing broke through Nanjing, and the Hongguang regime was destroyed.Zhu Yujian, the clan relative of Ming founded a new court calledLongwu atFuzhou. Meanwhile,Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant uprising army jointed with the Ming's governorHe Tengjiao, and fought against the court of Qing. It was impossible to assign a large staff to compile theHistory of Ming in the unstable political and military situation. The turbulent situation lasted until the 22nd year of Qing'sKangxi Emperor, the Kangxi Emperor conquered all opposing states and unified Mainland China andTaiwan. In the stage 1, the court of Qing was busy on the conquest, so the compiling process basically had no progress.
After theRevolt of the Three Feudatories had calmed down, the court of Qing was able to concentrate manpower to compile theHistory of Ming formally. Thirty-five years passed since the court of Qing officially announced the compilation of theHistory of Ming. In the 17th year of Kangxi Emperor, Qing started drafting learned scholars from all of the country, and stage 2 of compiling got into its stride. In the 4th year of Qianlong Emperor (1739), theHistory of Ming was completed compiling of all it sections. It was the third time that the court of Qing organized staff to modify the manuscript of theHistory of Ming, and finalized its compiling.[citation needed]
One of the main sources for theHistory of Ming wasMing Veritable Records, i.e. the records of individual emperors' reigns, each of which was compiled soon after the respective emperor's death, based on the daily records accumulated during the reign.
TheHistory of Ming follows a similar structure to previous standard histories:
Volumes 320–328 cover foreign states (外國). In contrast with previous histories many terms used exactly or closely match modern place names, includingKorea (朝鮮) in volume 320,Vietnam (Annam – 安南) in volume 321,Japan (日本) in volume 322, the island ofLuzon (呂宋) in the present-dayPhilippines in volume 323,Borneo (婆羅) in volume 323,Java (爪哇) in volume 324,Malacca (滿刺加) in volume 325,Sumatra (蘇門答喇) in volume 325,Johor (柔佛) in present-dayMalaysia in volume 325,
