Historical Studies Of Wu Tianchi

Wu Tianchi was an expert in the study of the history of the Song Dynasty and the Western Xia Dynasty in modern China.He had a wealth of historical works in his life,such as the Manuscripts of Wu Tianchi’s Literary History and the Historical Manuscripts of the Western Xia Dynasty.Wu Tianchi experienced many important historical stages in his life,such as the Republic of China,the founding of People’s Republic of China and the reform and opening up.Under the change of the times and his academic exploration,the development of Wu Tianchi’s historiography obviously fluctuated,which was reflected in the change of the research direction of Wu Tianchi,from the history of the Song Dynasty to the history of the Western Xia Dynasty.Generally speaking,Wu Tianchi’s academic achievements and historical thoughts are of great value,especially with the prosperity of Western Xia Studies in recent years.Wu Tianchi,as an early explorer of Western Xia Studies,played a foundation role in the development of Western Xia Studies.For a long time,little attention has been paid to Wu Tianchi’s historical research,most focused on the recollection of his peers or scholars when he taught in Sichuan University,and few scholars have done systematic and organized research on Wu Tianchi’s historiography.On the other hand,the study of Wu Tianchi’s historiography can to a certain extent reflect a century academic development in China.Therefore,this paper mainly analyzed Wu Tianchi’s life,academic development,academic achievements,and historical thoughts and so on.This article mainly selected the Manuscripts of Wu Tianchi’s Literary History and the Historical Manuscripts of the Western Xia Dynasty and other monographs as research objects,analyzed the writing background,content,research methods,research results and influence of Wu Tianchi’s monographs,and collected relevant issues with the methods of literature and data statistics,and then made analysis and comparison with the scholars of the same period,so as to have a comprehensive exposition of Wu Tianchi’s historical research thoughts and achievements.In his early days,Wu Tianchi focused on the study of the history of the Song Dynasty.He put forward many advanced and even groundbreaking propositions,such as Stories of Zhang Yong’s Ruling of the Shu Dynasty and Long Changqi-A Buried “Heresy Scholar”,etc.These topics had not been studied by scholars before.Besides,Wu Tianchi had his own unique views on topics,such as doubts about the succession from Taizu to Taizong in the Song Dynasty,Wang Anshi and the peasant uprising in Song Dynasty,etc,which also had significant impacts on the research in related fields.Wu Tianchi’s entry into the study of the Western Xia history was an “amateur work” under a special circumstance at that time,but it played a huge role for the development of the Western Xia history.Wu Tianchi made full use of the Western Xia historical materials written by the predecessors and the archaeological data of the Western Xia cultural relics.In addition,he also made use of his long-term accumulated knowledge under the study of the history of the Song Dynasty to complete the the Historical Manuscripts of the Western Xia Dynasty under difficult conditions.The Historical Manuscripts of the Western Xia Dynasty has laid a foundation for the study of Chinese Western Xia history after the reform and opening up and is of great help to the study and learning of Western Xia history.Wu Tianyi’s academic thought of historiography is synchronized with the one-hundred-year course of modern academic development in China.In particular,the thought of patriotic historiography runs through Wu Tianfu’s life,especially under the influence of Marxist historiography after the founding of the people’s Republic of China,rising to the thought of national equality and the pursuit of truth in historiography.Wu Tianyi influenced a generation of scholars in his research methods and made great contributions to the historians of the Song Dynasty and the Western Xia Dynasty.