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| Mingshi | |
|---|---|
| Name | Mingshi |
| Author | Office of History and Records, Qing dynasty |
| Country | Qing Empire |
| Language | Classical Chinese |
| Subject | History of the Ming dynasty |
| Publisher | Qing imperial press |
| Pub date | 1739–1800 (compilation and supplements) |
Mingshi is the official dynastic history of the Ming dynasty compiled under the Qing dynasty. Commissioned after the Qing conquest, it was produced by imperial historiographers and became a principal source for later historians studying the period of Hongwu Emperor, Yongle Emperor, and Wanli Emperor. The work has long been central to scholarship in Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and other Chinese cultural centers, and it has been cited in studies involving figures such as Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Di, Li Zicheng, Nurhaci, and Koxinga.
The compilation of the Mingshi took place within the political context of the Qing dynasty's consolidation after the battles of Shanhai Pass, the campaigns of Dorgon, and conflicts involving Southern Ming claimants. Imperial edicts directed historiographers from the Hanlin Academy, including scholars associated with the Qing imperial court, to collect memorials, edicts, and annals from repositories in Nanjing, Beijing, Ningbo, and Fuzhou. Leading compilers and contributors included officials drawn from offices linked to the Grand Secretariat, the Board of Rites, and provincial magistracies in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian. The work was affected by contemporaneous events such as the Revolt of the Three Feudatories and the policies of emperors like the Kangxi Emperor, Yongzheng Emperor, and Qianlong Emperor which shaped archival access and editorial priorities.
Mingshi follows the conventional format of official histories exemplified by the Twenty-Four Histories tradition, using standard sections such as imperial annals (diaries of reigns), treatises, chronological tables, biographies, and monographs on rites. It arranges material on emperors including Hongwu Emperor, Jianwen Emperor, Yongle Emperor, Jingtai Emperor, Chenghua Emperor, Jiajing Emperor, Longqing Emperor, Wanli Emperor, Taichang Emperor, and Tianqi Emperor. The treatises cover subjects tied to institutions like the Six Ministries (Ming) and entries concerning fiscal matters connected to figures such as Zhang Juzheng and events including the Single Whip Reform. Biographical sections profile generals and officials including Qi Jiguang, Zheng He, Wang Yangming, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, Cao Cao-era comparisons in scholarship, as well as literati such as Li Dongyang, Yang Shiqi, Liu Jin, Wei Zhongxian, and Xu Guangqi.
Compilers drew on archival collections from imperial repositories, local gazetteers from Jiangnan, memorials preserved in the Qing archives, private collections of literati families in Suzhou and Hangzhou, and earlier works like the Ming shi lu and provincial annals. They consulted documents associated with military commanders from the Mongol frontiers and coastal defense reports involving Zheng He's voyages and encounters with polities in Southeast Asia, Ryukyu Kingdom, and the Malacca Sultanate. The historiographical approach reflects influences from earlier historians of the Song dynasty and Yuan dynasty, and debates over legitimacy, exemplified by analyses comparing Southern Ming claimants such as Zhu Yihai with emergent Manchu rulers like Nurhaci and Hong Taiji. Modern scholars have interrogated the Mingshi using methodologies from sinology in institutions such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, Harvard University, Princeton University, and University of Oxford.
The Mingshi exists in multiple Qing-era printings produced in imperial presses in Beijing and regional workshops in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Later woodblock editions and hand-copied manuscripts circulated among families in Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and migrant communities in Fujian and Guangdong. Modern critical editions have been prepared by scholars in Taiwan, Japan, France, and United States academic centers, involving collation against holdings in repositories such as the National Library of China, the British Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and archives in Kyoto and Seoul. Textual transmission was shaped by censorship practices under emperors including Qianlong Emperor and by preservation efforts during conflicts like the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion.
Mingshi has informed biographies, regional studies, and military histories concerning campaigns of figures like Qi Jiguang, Coxinga, Koxinga, and explorers like Zheng He, and it has been cited in scholarship on institutions tied to Zhang Juzheng, Wei Zhongxian, and the Grand Secretariat. Its narratives influenced Qing-era policy debates in the Grand Council and later historiography at centers such as Peking University and Wuhan University. The work continues to shape modern reconstructions of the Ming period used by sinologists, museum curators at institutions like the Palace Museum (Beijing), and legal historians tracing bureaucratic practices to dynastic precedents seen in documents from Nanjing Imperial Palace and Beijing Forbidden City. Contemporary digital humanities projects at Academia Sinica, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Harvard-Yenching Library, and National Palace Museum include annotated editions and searchable corpora that rely on the Mingshi as a foundational source.
Category:Official histories of China Category:Ming dynasty