A Study Of Zhengxiao's Jinyan

ZhengXiao was a famous politician and historian in the late Ming Dynasty. He was in the bureaucratic field for a long time and experienced ups and downs during that period. He read a lot, so he was knowledgeable and had an extraordinary insight toward everything. He was not only a lord of court but also a famous writer. He was a pioneer of compiling contemporary history that narrated the story in the Ming Dynasty, leaving a lot of excellent works for the world, among which JinYan is a typical one.JinYan is an unofficial history note of Ming Dynasty, with regard to national policies, strategies in war, the livelihood of people, folk customs and rumors and so on.JinYan has some distinguishing features in editing, which can be seen in the following six aspects: a list recorded many times, and many lists recorded together; induction and comparison, summarizing and generalizing; the writing technique of ChunQiu; special appellation; combining narrative and discussion; legendary description.JinYan conveys a lot of information. In the terms of the political thought, there exist royal awareness, orthodox ideas, conception on fate and interaction thinking between Human being and heaven, Hua Yi thinking, concern for the country and people. In the terms of historical thought, there exist fusion thought of connecting the ancient times to modern times, practical thought of applying knowledge to practice, realistic thinking and suspected ideas of history.JinYan is of great value. In the terms of value of literature, it is not only the source of other historical documents, making up their lack and correcting their mistakes, but also used to evaluate and research other historical documents. In the terms of value of history, it covers national policies, strategies in war, the livelihood of people, folk rumors, and many other aspects of the early Ming Dynasty, so it is helpful in studying the politics, economy, culture, ethnic relations of the early Ming Dynasty.