Zhào Ěrxùn 趙爾巽
Zì Cìshān 次珊 (or 次山); also signed Gōngjìng 公鏡. Native of Tiělǐng 鐵嶺 (in modern Liáoníng), of Manchu Banner extraction (Hànjūn Zhènglánqí 漢軍正藍旗). Jìnshì of Tóngzhì 13 (1874). Lifedates 1844–1927.
A leading late-Qīng senior official and the principal Republican-era custodian of Qīng historical scholarship. Career: rose through the late-Qīng provincial administration, holding Húběi àncháshǐ 湖北按察使, Shānxī xúnfǔ 山西巡撫, Húnán xúnfǔ 湖南巡撫, Sìchuān zǒngdū 四川總督, and finally Dōngsānshěng zǒngdū 東三省總督 (Governor-General of the Three Manchurian Provinces) from 1911 — the most senior frontier post of the late Qīng. After the Xīnhài revolution of October 1911 he initially refused to declare for the Republic but was eventually persuaded; in 1912 he retired with full Qīng-loyalist sympathies.
In March 1914 President Yuán Shìkǎi appointed him Guānzhǎng 館長 (Director) of the new Qīngshǐ guǎn 清史館, with the formal commission to compile the Qīng shǐ. Zhào led the project for thirteen years (1914–1927) through repeated political crises and financial collapses. As the project never reached completion in his lifetime, and with his death imminent in 1927, he authorised the rushed printing of the unrevised manuscript as the Qīng shǐ gǎo (KR2a0039) — explicitly designating it a “draft” (gǎo) rather than a finished history. He died shortly thereafter, having signed the presentation memorial.
His own personal jiācáng archive — built up across half a century of provincial governance — was an important source for the Qīng shǐ gǎo compilation team.
His biography is in Qīng shǐ gǎo 469 (the work he himself supervised; the biography was added by his son Zhào Tiānwèi 趙天慰 and the editorial team after his death).