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The Ming Shih-Lu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

L. Carrington Goodrich  and
Shou-Hsüan Han
L. Carrington Goodrich
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Shou-Hsüan Han
Affiliation:
Metropolitan Museum
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Extract

One of the fortunes of war has been the flight from Europe and Asia to the United States of numberless things of value, among them certain Chinese books and manuscripts belonging to the National Library of Peiping. The latter were deposited for safe keeping in the Library of Congress in the autumn of 1941. One very considerable item in this group is the Ming shih-lu or Veritable records of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), which the Library of Congress and Columbia University have been permitted to reproduce in micro-film.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , November 1943 , pp. 37 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1943

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References

1 The Ming shih is a work of 332 chilan, plus table of contents of 4 chüan. A perfect copy of the Ming shih-lu would make a set of 3,132 chüan. This compares with the 4414 chüan of the Ch'ing shih-lu which covers the years 1583–1908. Vide Biggerstaff, Knight, Harvard journal of Asiatic studies, 4 (July, 1939), 102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Actually it would seem unsafe to assume that men in high position gave much time to the editorship of these shih-lu. Ku Ping-ch“ien is a case in point. Achieving the chin-shih in 1595, he became president of the Board of Ceremonial in 1622, and was a member of the Cabinet or Nei-ko from 1622 to 1626, years which are among the darkest in Ming history (Cf. DrKennedy's, G. A. biography of Chu Yu-chiao in Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period [Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1943], vol. 1, p. 190Google Scholar). He then left office. In 1628 he was identified with a rebellious faction and in 1630 reduced to the status of commoner. Mr. Wang reports that on June 29, 1626, Ku presented to the throne the first part of this work, covering the years 1572 to 1582, in 131 pen. After that his connection with the editorship is not mentioned.

3 For some of these figures see Goodrich, L. C. in Toung pao, 36 (1940), 81–84.Google Scholar The figure for the set in Paris is given by Pelliot, in T'oung pao, 14 (1913), 710.Google Scholar The sets in the Cabinet Library are mentioned in its catalogue 1:624–625. Fuchs, Walter, writing in Pacific affairs, 9 (March, 1936), 83Google Scholar, tells of a set in Seoul, but gives no indication of its size.

4 Privately known as Chu Yu-yüan (d. 1519). He was the fourth son of Hsien-tsung and father of Shih-tsung, and was granted imperial rank posthumously by his son, in spite of much opposition from the court. The Jui-tsung shih-lu was compiled by decree in 1525–1526 under the editorship of Hsü Kuang-tso (d. 1526). As this record parallels the record of the reigning emperors, it may perhaps be excluded from the legitimate series of shih-lu.