Qīng shǐ gǎo 清史稿
Draft History of the Qīng by 趙爾巽 (Zhào Ěrxùn, 1844–1927) et al., compiled at the Qīngshǐ guǎn 清史館 of the Republic of China between 1914 and 1927.
About the work
The “twenty-fifth” of the Twenty-Four-plus Histories (counted as the twenty-fifth in the post-1949 Èrshíwǔ shǐ canon, though it was never formally promulgated as a finalised zhèngshǐ). In 536 juǎn (25 jì, 142 zhì, 53 biǎo, 316 lièzhuàn), covering the Qīng dynasty (1644–1912). Compiled by a team of more than a hundred scholars at the Qīngshǐ guǎn established in Běijīng on 3 March 1914 under Yuán Shìkǎi’s Republican government, with Zhào Ěrxùn as principal editor. After 13 years of intermittent work — disrupted by political turmoil, financial crises, and the warlord period — the manuscript was rushed to print in 1927 as Zhào Ěrxùn lay dying. He explicitly designated the printing as a gǎo (draft), not a finished shǐ, and the title Qīng shǐ gǎo reflects his judgement that the work required substantial further revision before becoming a formal zhèngshǐ.
Abstract
The Qīng shǐ gǎo is the only formal dynastic history covering the Qīng dynasty (1644–1912). Its compilation was authorised by President Yuán Shìkǎi in March 1914, only sixteen months after the Qīng abdication of February 1912. Yuán saw the project as part of his programme of restoring traditional cultural-political continuity (he was about to attempt his short-lived imperial restoration of 1915–1916). The Qīngshǐ guǎn 清史館 was established in Beijing under the directorship of Zhào Ěrxùn 趙爾巽 (1844–1927), the former Qīng Bǐngbù shàngshū 兵部尚書 and Dōngsānshěng zǒngdū 東三省總督 (Governor-General of the Three Manchurian Provinces), with a working compilation team of over 100 scholars including Liǔ Yízhèng 柳貽徵, Mèng Sēn 孟森, Wáng Shùnán 王樹枏, Xià Sūnchóng 夏孫桐, Mǎ Qíchāng 馬其昶, and Yuán Yánxiū 袁延修.
The compilation drew on the Qīng court’s exceptionally rich documentary heritage: the Shílù of every Qīng emperor (the most extensive and best-preserved shílù of any dynasty); the Dōnghuá lù compilations; the Huìdiǎn (institutional codes); the Fānglüè (military operations); the Shèngxùn (imperial edict collections); the personal bǐjì and wénjí of officialdom; the Xíngfǎ huìyào; and the rich epigraphical and gazetteer record. Total documentary material substantially exceeded that available for any earlier zhèngshǐ.
The 13 years of compilation were disrupted by repeated political crises: the Hóngxiàn monarchical attempt of 1915–1916; the Zhāng Xūn restoration of 1917; the warlord wars of the 1920s; financial collapse of the Qīngshǐ guǎn funding. By 1927, with Zhào Ěrxùn aged 83 and dying, and the Beijing government on the verge of collapse, the compilation team rushed an incomplete, unrevised, and uncollated text to print. The full zhèngshǐ programme of revision and harmonisation — which all earlier zhèngshǐ had received — was never carried out.
The work has serious internal inconsistencies, factual errors, and editorial breaks reflecting the abandoned revision. More seriously, its political stance — many compilers had served the Qīng court and were unreconciled to the Republic — produced a perceptible Qīng-loyalist orientation. The Nationalist government in Nanjing in 1929 issued an order banning the work for its “reactionary” political stance; the People’s Republic in 1949 maintained the ban officially while permitting circulation for scholarly use. A Qīngshǐ compilation project authorised by the PRC State Council in 2002 (under Dài Yì 戴逸 of Rénmín Dàxué) is intended to produce the definitive replacement; the new Qīng shǐ is reportedly substantially complete in draft as of the mid-2020s but has not yet been issued.
The work has 25 jì (12 emperors plus Tàizǔ and Tàizōng of the pre-1644 Manchu period); 142 zhì (the most extensive of any zhèngshǐ: Tiānwén 天文, Zāiyì 災異, Shíxiàn 時憲 [calendar], Dìlǐ 地理, Lǐ 禮, Yuè 樂, Yúfú 輿服, Xuǎnjǔ 選舉, Zhíguān 職官, Shíhuò 食貨, Héqú 河渠, Bīng 兵, Xíngfǎ 刑法, Yìwén 藝文, Bāngjiāo 邦交, Sàngfú 喪服 — including the unique Bāngjiāo zhì on Sino-foreign diplomatic relations); 53 biǎo (chief ministers, six Shàngshū, vassal princes, etc.); 316 lièzhuàn including the substantial Hòufēi, Zhū wáng, Liènǚ (uniquely numerous: 609 entries — more than all earlier zhèngshǐ liènǚ zhuàn combined), and the Yi-shū 藝術 / Chóurén 疇人 sections preserving extensive material on Qing science and missionaries.
The standard modern punctuated edition is the Zhōnghuá Shūjú Qīng shǐ gǎo (48 vols., 1976–1977, ed. Qǐ Sīhé 啟思和 et al.). The work is the principal modern source for late-imperial Chinese history despite its acknowledged status as a draft.
Translations and research
No complete translation. Major partial translations include various lièzhuàn in: Arthur W. Hummel (ed.), Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (1644–1912), 2 vols. (Library of Congress, 1943) — the standard English-language biographical reference, drawing extensively on Qīng shǐ gǎo lièzhuàn; Jonathan D. Spence, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master (Yale, 1966) — extensive Qīng shǐ gǎo use. Standard Chinese-language scholarship: Mèng Sēn 孟森, MíngQīng shǐ jiǎngyì 明清史講義 (Zhōnghuá, 1981); Mèng Sēn, Qīng dài shǐ 清代史 (Shanghai Gǔjí, 1957); Xiāo Yīshān 蕭一山, Qīng dài tōngshǐ 清代通史 (5 vols., 1923–1927; rev. 1962). On the compilation history: Zōu Àilián 鄒愛蓮, Qīng shǐ gǎo bīanzhuǎn shǐwén 清史稿編纂史聞 (Beijing, 2007). On the new PRC Qīng shǐ project: Dài Yì 戴逸 et al., Qīng shǐ biānzuǎn xiàngmù qǐdòng dòngyīn 清史編纂項目啟動動因 (Rénmín Dàxué, 2003).
Other points of interest
The Qīng shǐ gǎo is the only “twenty-fifth history” of the post-Sìkù zhèngshǐ canon — added to the Twenty-Four Histories by post-1949 publishers as the Èrshíwǔ shǐ (Twenty-Five Histories). Its inclusion is conventional rather than canonical; the work has never been formally promulgated as a finalised zhèngshǐ. The Bāngjiāo zhì (juǎn 153–157) is uniquely valuable as a Chinese-perspective record of nineteenth-century Sino-Western diplomatic and treaty relations — including detailed accounts of the Opium Wars, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, and the Boxer Protocol. The Chóurén zhuàn 疇人傳 in the Yìshù 藝術 category preserves the only substantial zhèngshǐ lièzhuàn treatment of pre-modern Chinese mathematicians, astronomers, and scientific missionaries (including Matteo Ricci, Schall von Bell, Verbiest, and others).