Qīndìng shèngcháo xùnjié zhūchén lù 欽定勝朝殉節諸臣錄
Imperially Ordered Record of the Officials of the Vanquished Dynasty Who Died in Loyalty imperially commissioned, prepared by 舒赫德 (奉敕撰) and 于敏中 (奉敕撰)
About the work
A 12-juàn imperially commissioned compilation of officials of the shèngcháo 勝朝 (literally “the dynasty defeated by us” — i.e., the Míng) who died in loyalty (xùnjié 殉節) at the MíngQīng transition. The compilation was ordered by Qiánlóng’s imperial edict of Qiánlóng 40 (1775), eleventh month, tenth day, and presented in Qiánlóng 41 (1776). The catalog meta gives the date as Qiánlóng 41. The work is in three categorical tiers, with posthumous canonization (shì 諡) granted accordingly: tier one — those whose biographies and great deeds are conspicuously documented receive zhuānshì 専諡 (individual posthumous titles); tier two — Zhōngliè 忠烈, Zhōngjié 忠節; tier three — Lièmǐn 烈愍, Jiémǐn 節愍 (collective canonical titles for those whose details are less recoverable). The total of those granted canonical titles is 1,600+ men. A further category — zhūshēng wéibù 諸生韋布 (commoner-degree-holders not in the shìjí 仕籍 official rolls) and those whose names alone are recovered, including “shānqiáo shìyǐn” 山樵市隠 (mountain-woodcutter and city-recluse types) — go to inclusion in the Zhōngyìcí 忠義祠 (Loyalty-and-Righteousness shrines) at their respective localities, totaling 2,000+ further men. The work also includes the imperially composed Yùzhì tíshī 御製題詩 (with prose preface) at the head, plus the imperial edict that initiated the compilation, plus the proposal-memorials by the deliberating ministers.
The Qiánlóng emperor’s preface is unusually direct: “Of the Míng’s late officials who died for it, more than [these]: their numbers far exceed those of the Hàn, Táng, and Sòng combined. To record and honour them is something none of those earlier dynasties undertook — and likewise sufficient to publicize loyalty-and-uprightness and stir the moral fibre of officialdom.” The work is thus the summa of the Qián-lóng-court’s program of late-Míng zhōngyì commemoration, contemporaneous with the politically related project of recording (and editing!) the Cìbèn pái 賜本派 (the cancelled Míng jí of the Sìkù program).
Imperial preface (御製題詩有序)
“For the shèngguó’s officials who died in loyalty, each was able to be loyal to what he served — they cannot be allowed to languish without recognition. We have specially commanded the Dàxuéshì, the Nine Ministries, and others to consult the histories, deliberate, and grant posthumous canonical titles, and to enroll [the men] in the shrine, that we may make manifest our condolence. Those of the Jiànwén officials who died for the cause have also been ordered re-deliberated. Now the Dàxuéshì and others have submitted their deliberation: those whose lifetime great-deeds were notably conspicuous receive an individual canonical title; the rest are granted the joint title Zhōngliè and Zhōngjié; the next, the joint title Lièmǐn and Jiémǐn — total 1,600+ men. As to those zhūshēng and commoner-cap-and-belt who are not on the official rolls and whose names are unrecoverable, like the mountain woodcutter and city-recluse types, they are enrolled in the local Zhōngyìcí — total another 2,000+ men. Each is given a separate volume for our review, all alike apportioned in fitting measure. We therefore call the work Shèngcháo xùnjié zhūchén lù, prefixing the issued imperial edict and attaching the deliberation memorials of the court ministers — to be cut and circulated, that all under heaven and afterwards who read history may have something to consult and corroborate. The Míng-end officials who died for the cause are too numerous so to be reckoned — far surpassing the Hàn, Táng, and Sòng. To record and signally distinguish them is what no earlier age has done; sufficient to display loyalty-and-uprightness and animate official conduct. We need not, as Zhāng Ruòjī 張若溎 had requested, comb every locality and add further thousands — that would only complicate without end, and adding tens of thousands more would not augment our manifest principle. The court ministers’ rebuttal-deliberations we have also recorded as right. We hereby compose a poem at the head, by way of expressing the central intent.” [The poem follows: “True history’s value is the bright marking of good and ill…”.]
Abstract
The Qīndìng shèngcháo xùnjié zhūchén lù is the principal Qián-lóng-court compilation of Míng-Qīng-transition zhōngjié (loyal martyrs), intended to consolidate over 3,600 men into a single record-and-canonization document. The catalog meta gives composition as Qiánlóng 41 (= 1776). The work was prepared by Shūhèdé 舒赫德 (Šuhede; CBDB id 439598) and Yú Mǐnzhōng 于敏中 (CBDB id 57033, 1714–1779) at imperial command. The work is one of the more substantial imperially-composed Qing historiographical compilations and is part of a broader Qián-lóng-court program of moral-political consolidation that included the parallel rehabilitation of Dorgon (KR2g0042) and the program for the multi-ethnic gōngchén nobility (KR2g0043 and KR2g0044). Politically, the work performs the simultaneous gestures of (a) acknowledging Míng-loyalist heroism (against the Manchu conquest) and (b) absorbing it into a Qing imperial cult of zhōngjié — a stance that strikingly differs from the Yōng-zhèng-period suppression of Hànjiān and Míng-loyalist memory.
Translations and research
- Lynn A. Struve, The Ming-Qing Conflict, 1619–1683: A Historiography and Source Guide (AAS Monograph, 1998), is the principal English-language reference.
- Pamela Kyle Crossley, A Translucent Mirror (UC Press, 1999), discusses the work’s place in Qián-lóng imperial historiography.
- Jonathan D. Spence, Treason by the Book (Viking, 2001), provides background.
- The standard catalog notice is in Sì-kù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 史部·傳記類三·總錄之屬.
Other points of interest
The work’s strikingly direct historiographical-rehabilitative purpose — Qiánlóng deliberately commemorating those who fought against the Qīng founding — makes it one of the most studied late-Qián-lóng imperial-court historiographical compilations. The Zhāng Ruòjī episode noted in the imperial preface (Qiánlóng explicitly rejecting Zhāng’s proposal to extend the search to all localities indefinitely) is itself a small but revealing window into Qián-lóng-court historiographical decision-making.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.
- Crossley, A Translucent Mirror (1999).
- CBDB person id 439598 (Shūhèdé 舒赫德).
- CBDB person id 57033 (Yú Mǐnzhōng 于敏中, 1714–1779).