The Research On Documents About Tang History Making By Qing Scholars

Qing Dynasty is an era featuring in reviewing, reconsidering, collating and summarizing the traditional academic research in the history of the Chinese academic development. The research on the academic development and its works in Qing Dynasty obtained the spectacular achievements since the later part of Qing dynasty, but it mainly focuses on the macroscopic research and the theoretical discussion. Little attention is paid to the study in various academic fields, especially to Tang History in historiography. The study on Tang History, as an indiscerptible part in the academic history of Qing Dynasty, should take an important role both in academic study and historiography. Therefore, it is necessary and of great academic significance to summarize the research of Tang History during Qing Dynasty and learn its achievements well. Due to the textual research as the main stream in Qing Dynasty, the chief achievement of Tang History is to study and collate the literary documents of Tang Dynasty. However, the work covers a wide scope and various achievements, it is impossible to focus on all aspects due to the limit of length. This dissertation mainly summarizes the research of Tang History in Qing Dynasty from the following six aspects due to its great achievements and far-reaching impacts on the area.1. Revision, Notes and Correction on Two "Tang Shu"Two "Tang Shu", as the elementary historical materials, obtained the comprehensive reorganization and research in Qing Dynasty.The book hall military prowess in Qianlong4th Year and the subsequent reprinted ones provided convenience for people to read and study two "Tang Shu". In Daoguang20th Year, Cen Jiangong revised "Old Tang Book" again and produced two important by-products "Collating Notes of Old Tang Book "and "Lost Words of Old Tang Book", which have become an indispensable material for studying "old Tang book".In addition, people in Qing Dynasty had done a massive notepapers and commentaries on Two Tang Book, mainly including "Co-Copy of Tang Book" by Shen Binzhen,"Commingled Injection of New Tang Book and Old Tang Book" by Wang Xianqian, and "Notes on Tang Shu" by Tang Jingchong. Qing people also made striking achievements in revising "Tang Book", which includes "Correction and Supplements of Forms about Prime Minister Family Extraction in Tang Dynasty" by Shen Binzhen and the textual research on Tang Prefecture of Zhe Chong by Lao Jingyuang and Luo Zhenyu.2. Three Experts at Textual Research and Two "Tang Shu"Qian Daxin, Wang Mingsheng, Zhao Yi represented the highest achievements in Qian-jia Leraning. They made a comprehensive study respectively on "two Tang Shu" from different angle in their famous books "Twenty-two Historical Records","Seventeen Historical Records Discussion" and "Reading Notes in Twenty-two Historical Records".Qian Daxin’s study mainly focused on the three aspects:the collation of "Old Tang Book and New Tang Book", the compilation of their success and failure and the exploration of related questions. Wang Mingsheng discussed the character collation and the gain and loss of compilation of two "Tang Shu". Meanwhile he collected other’s views and made his own comments, but it is a pity it still had some oversights and faults. Zhao Yi’s achievements on two "Tang Shu" are mainly embodied in two aspects-historical methods and historical events. His research method and theory on history event surpassed the former experts though it was suspected to repeat simply the predecessor’s work.3. The Collation and Research of Tang Literary Documents in Contents of SiKu QuanShuThe Compilation of "Si Ku Quan Shu" at the beginning of Qing Dynasty, considering that Tang Dynasty literature was scattered and lost gradually, it summarized the literary documents in outline from the following aspects:authors, versions, contents, superior and inferior aspects, guided by the principle "when a thing is rare, it becomes precious", beneficial to the textual research and preserving literature documents. Meanwhile, the codification of "Si Ku Quan Shu" has also done a certain document study works, which edited17literary documents of Tang Dynasty from the "YongLe Encyclopedia" and discriminated or collated, deleted and corrected."Si Ku Quan Shu" on the summary and evaluation of Tang literature still holds an affirmative reference value though it still has some flaws.4. Epigraphy and the Research of Tang HistoryScholars in Qing Dynasty generally attached much importance to the collection and collation of stone materials, consciously combined it with the research of literary history, verified and certified history with great achievements. The research on Tang history naturally was its indispensable part. The epigraphic works such as cataloguing, postscripts and colophons, contents of Tang Dynasty has all accounted for great proportion. Specialized research works take "Textual study on the Superscription of the Censorate Jingshe" and "Textual Study on the Superscription of the Langguan Shizhu" by Zhao Yue and Lao Ge as representatives. Te research results on Tang History scattered in Qing epigraphic works are sporadic, but the value can’t be ignored.5. Xu Song and Searching and Arrangement of Tang Historical Materials"A Research on Streets in Two Capital Cities in Tang Dynasty" and "The Record and Research of Number One Scholars in Tang Dynasty" by Xu Song, on the basis of original texts, were widely quoted from a broad array of historical data in the literature, searched from the vast literary documents and arranged by certain order. The former text was excerpted from "Topographay of Changan City" and "Geographical Records of Henan Province", and revised the original text by adjusting the order, supplementing or deleting, and converting partial original text into notes or notes into original text. Partial notes were original notes in "Topographay of Changan City" and "Geographical Records of Henan Province", the other part was that Xu Song supplemented for the original notes or the new notes for the addition of a new text. The deficiency is that xu song didn’t distinguish the original notes from his new notes. The latter text made a list of historical events year by year related to imperial examinations, imperial name, number of persons etc. Notes were mainly the sources of literary documents, related historical materials and inspection. Two "Tang Shu" is the important material for studying the two capital cities and imperial examination in Tang Dynasty, The approach of searching and arranging historical material is also worth of learning for later generations.6. The collation and Research on Literary Documents of Tang DynastyThe achievements made by Scholars of Qing Dynasty on collating and summarizing the literary documents of Tang Dynasty are nothing less than its collation and summary of two "Tang Shu". They not only compiled "Complete Collection of Tang Poems","Complete Collection of Tang Papers", but also selected and compiled many kinds of collections of Tang poems, collected enormous carvings, and made revision and notes on them. The formal notes of Qing scholars on the collections of Tang Dynasty are great in number with the characteristic of noting Du Fu’poems and many notes book on one author’s works, by wide application of mutual verification between literature and history and fully absorb the results of predecessors, showing completely the feature of academic summary in great era.In conclusion, the accomplishment achieved by Qing scholars in the aspect of the research on Tang history should gain affirmative recognition, especially in the aspect of trying hard to preserve, collate and improve the charts when building historical data of Tang Dynasty, which made many useful historical data available to the later generations. Meanwhile, they also had a breakthrough in research methodology:On one hand, the practical activities,which examine and verify history by using epigraphic material, made a good preparation for the method of dual evidence proposed by Wang Guowei; on the other hand, Zhao Yi’s method of induction and conclusion, Xu Song’s method of searching and arrangement of historical data, and Qian Qianyi’s method of mutual verification between literature and history are necessarily of much help to the later generations. The great feature of Qing’s study on Tang history is that most works are in the forms of academic reading notes, prefaces and postscripts, notes and letters. Although Qing scholars had achieved a lot in studying Tang history, there obviously existed some shortcomings and deficiency, which mainly display in the following aspects:narrow research fields, few excellent research works and only simple repetition.