"The Ming History" Early Biographies (Volume122-212)Compiling Research

The Ming History is the last volume of Twenty-Four Histories. It’s strict in style,rich in content, clear and concise in statement.So it is respected very much.But its’ compilation lasted long time,and compilers were changed frequently,and there were many drafts in the compiling process and the relationship was complex.Therefore it left behind a lot of problems. The study on the issue of the Qing Dynasty official compiling The Ming History has important reference significance for historians doing reareach on history.The thesis, inviding eight chapters investigates the compilation of The Ming History detailed from the view of the early biographies. The first chapter discusses the overview of the Qing Dynasty official compiling The Ming History. By reviewing of the compilation process, summarizing compiling stage characteristics, and examining the situation of the drafts about early biographies, it is showed overall and clear understanding about the compilation of The Ming History.The second chapter explores the historical source of the early biographies of The Ming History. By contrast,it reveals the historical source of the early biographies including official historical data such as Ming ShiLu, local records, and including private historical data as epitaphs, inscriptions, biographies, corpus and records of events etc. The historical source of The Ming History cover a very wide range.But the main source is Ming ShiLu. As can be seen from the historical source, the compilation of The Ming History is based on Ming ShiLu,and refer to unofficial historical data.The third chapter investigates the compilers’drafts about the early biographies written in Kangxi dynasty. This section discusses early drafts of thirteen compilers, including Wang Wan, Mao QiLing, Fang XiangYing, Yan ShengSun, You Dong, Jiang Chen Ying, Li Zhenyu, Zhu Yizun, Pang Kai, Wang Yuan, Shen Heng, Xu Qiu, Pan Lei etc. It investigates the situation that the early drafts were adopted by The Ming History,and analyse the value and lack of the drafts,also analyse the historical thought which the drafts reflect.The fourth chapter investigates the biography part of TangBin’s draft.The biographies of TangBin’s draft record the chancellors in ZhengTong,JingTai, TianShun,ChengHua,HongZhi dynasty.Firstly, compared to the compilers’early drafts,the paper discovers that the biographies of TangBin’s draft were inspecting works during TangBin was minister.Secondly,it discusses the value, lack and historical thought of the biographies of TangBin’s draft.The fifth chapter investigates the early biographies of WanSiTong’s drafts. Firstly, reveal the inner link of Wan Sitong’s drafts and clear the order of each book. By comparison study, Tianyi Pavilion version draft of The Ming History is the earliest, which is foundation of416volumes of The Ming History and313volumes of The History of the MingJi Zhuan.416volumes of The Ming History is slightly earlier than313volumes of The History of the MingJi Zhuan, and both of them about the early biographies are the same on the whole. Secondly, analyse the value and lack of416volumes of The Ming History. Finally, discuss the historical ideas of Wan SiTong on compiling history.The sixth chapter investigates the early biography section of The History of the Ming Biography which is recorded by XuQianXue from the preface.Compared to416volumes of WanSiTong’s draft and WangHongXu’s draft.the paper reveals that The History of the Ming Biography and two books are inherited in content, but also there are difference. The three books appear a trend from complex to simple basically. Therefore, we can determine the position of The History of the Ming Biography in The Ming History Compiling system-later than WanSiTong’s draft, and earlier than WangHongXu’s draft.Then reveal that the view which The History of the Ming Biography was written by XuQianXue is wrong.The seventh chapter investigates the early biographies of WangHongXu’s draft.This part expounds mainly achievement of WangHongXu in compilation,and the shortcoming of WangHongXu’s draft.and analyse WangHongXu’s political leaning. The eighth chapter investigates the early biographies of the WuYing palace version of The Ming History.It discusses the value and lack of The Ming History,and analyse official ideology which is reflected in The Ming History.In conclusion, through researching the compilation of the early biographies of The Ming History, the thesis reveals the inner link and the real consistent situation between different drafts of The Ming History, shows the detail of the compilation, explores the compiling characteristics and the change of historical thought,and summarizes the experiences and lessons,so that we can get a more definite comprehension in The Ming History.