The Research On Historical Achievements Of Yang Kuan In Pre-Qin History

In the numbers of books and papers written by Yang Kuan in his life, the most influential achievement in historiography mainly concentrated in the field of Pre-Qin History, which includes the research of Ancient Legends, Warring States and History of Western Zhou. In the study of Ancient Legends, with a comprehensive survey by the Theory of Differentiation of Myth based on Gu Jiegang’ Theory of Stacking Accumulation, Yang Kuan systematically restored the myth prototype of the ancient legends and characters, and deeply revealed the differentiation evolution from myth to ancient history. During half a century of research on Warring States, Yang Kuan made a systematic reorganization and textual research on the 240 years’ historical materials of Warring States, which broadened the vision of historical materials and facilitated deep research for the scholars. The publication of his three successive editions of Chan-kuo shih made the complicated and confused history of Warring States become clear and vivid, and led people see the transform of Yang Kuan’s academic course. In the study of the history of the Western Zhou, Yang Kuan extensively combined the ancient etiquette system with the materials of bronze inscriptions, which materially developed the academic study of the Western Zhou and made us acquire a greater depth of understanding the etiquette system of Western Zhou. Benefiting from strong knowledge of historical materials and rigorous academic attitude, Yang Ku an acquired substantial results in the field of Pre-Qin history. He not only knew well about Pre-Qi n-Dynasty canonical works but also had a perfect command of bronze inscriptions, Bamboo slips and book copied on silk. By textual researching and mutual corroborating on the literature handed down from ancient times and unearthed data, Yang Kuan had built historical studies which was ba ed on solid historical data. Yang Kuan’s academic monograph is usually guided by research paper and then pieced together into a book from unique papers. Therefore, Yang Kuan’s pre-Qin history study has the characteristics of detailed historical data, rigorous research and rich in citation.