| Siratorikurakiti, the pioneer of the Oriental History in modern Japan, advances "The Argument of Erasing Yao-Shun-Yu"; Ku Chieh-kang, the founder of the "The Suspicion of the Ancient Chinese History" in the Republic China, propounds the "Stratification Theory". Both theories have had a great influence and led to continuous discussions and contentions in modern Chinese and Japanese academic circles. In current research field of Sino-Japanese history, there have already been some researches on the contrast between Siratorikurakiti's and Ku Chieh-kang's theories about Ancient Chinese History. The existing research results are mainly concerned about the academic backgrounds and origins about Siratorikurakiti and Ku Chieh-kang and trying to explore if their studies are in a relationship of inheritance. However, there are few researches on the comparison about some specific viewpoints about the two scholars' theories and neither are there some contrastive studies of their views about the dialectical methods, the content and the conclusions of Yugong Geography. The thesis focuses on the distinctions between Siratorikurakiti's and Ku Chieh-kang's studies on Yugong Geography, including those specific points like the time of the book finished, its legendary value, its geographical value, discussions "The Argument of Nine States", "Wufu System" and so on; the comparison between the two scholars' researching views, methods, levels and depths are also presented. Through the previous studies, the different attitudes towards ancient Chinese History adopted respectively by the Japanese academics and the intellectuals of republic China are also revealed.This article contains four parts. The first chapter analyses the academic origin of the thought of "Doubting Antiquity" by Siratorikurakiti and Ku Chieh-kang, which is a challenge to the thought of "Approving Antiquity" that is the dominant in traditional academy. However, by applying the methods and ideas of western historiography, Siratorikurakiti completely overthrows the idea of "taking legends as authentic history records" before Meiji and reveals the legendary nature of Chinese ancient history, which is the complete deconstruction of Chinese ancient history. Based on the whole study of "suspecting the ancient to distinguish truth and false" proposed by Chinese traditional classics and history scholars, Ku Chieh-kang stresses on the dispute about the present and ancient Chinese prose in Ancient Chinese Book and the academic achievement of textual criticism in daring to doubt and detect forgeries in Song and Qing Dynasty, does research about Chinese ancient history by combining the achievements in archaeology and epigaphy and does textual research about forgeries and pseudo histories at the same time finishing the task of reconstruct Chinese ancient history.The second chapter mainly distinguishes the two scholars' differences in their perspectives, overviews and methods about the written time and values of Yugong Geography. As for the written time of Yugong Geography, Siratorikurakiti thinks the legend of "three kings:Yao, Shun and Yu" appeared simultaneously, so the written time of Yugong Geography is the same as the above time mentioned before, that is, in the Spring and Autumn Period, prior to the time of Confucius. However, Ku Chieh-kang thinks that the legend of Yu happens before the legends of Yao and Shun and its written time of Yugong Geography is later than the time recorded in the legend, that is, in the later part of the Warring States Period and before the unification of Qin Dynasty. The two scholars stand in the opposite positions as far as the geographic value of Yugong Geography is concerned. Siratorikurakiti not only completely denies the geographical value of Yugong Geography, but also thoroughly obliterates the geographic and historical materials' value of the Xia part in Ancient Chinese Book; while Ku Chieh-kang takes Yugong Geography as the "treasured book about Geography in China". The two scholars' completely opposite arguments reflect the different positions in treating Yugong Geography.Chapter three focuses on their distinctions on "The Argument of Nine States" in Yugong Geography. As for what age saw the appearance of "Nine States" in Yugong Geography, Siratorikurakiti's did not carry out a specific research, but Ku Chieh-kang has made a specialized confirmation. Siratorikurakiti suspected the authenticity of "The Argument of Nine States" from the perspective of the Chinese traditional thoughts. Ku Chieh-kang examined the appearing time and evolving process of "The Argument of Nine States" from the territorial changes of the Central Plain Dynasty in different historic periods. On the basis of the legend of traditional beliefs, Siratorikurakiti advocated the thorough deletion. His capitalization on the evidence from traditional historiography's textology to confirm the validity of "The Argument of Nine States" being the premise, Ku Chieh-kang advocated the importance of cautious arguing. Siratorikurakiti did not believe the actual existence of "Nine States" in Yugong Geography, whereas Ku Chieh-kang thought it is a real division of the land of Sengoku.The fourth chapter features the distinctions between the "Wufu system" of and the Wuyue in Yugong Geography. Siratorikurakiti and Ku Chieh-kang both agree that "Wufu System" possesses some fantasy elements in Yugong Geography. However, Siratorikurakiti holds that the "Wufu System" is not a survey of the measurement of geographical boundaries, Ku Chieh-kang thinks "Wufu" system in ancient China is actually real, just because there are some detailed accounts of "Wufu" mileage apart in Yugong Geography, which makes it colored with fantasy. Siratorikurakiti and Ku Chieh-kang also study "Wuyue", but Siratorikurakiti ignores the geographic information of mountains and rivers, and only argues with the idea of "five palace of the sky", while Chieh-kang is devoted to the origin and evolution of the name "WuYue", thus further illustrating the formation process of mountain ideas in Chinese ancient history. Starting with the "Wufu" and "Wuyue" system, both the two sum up the characteristics of the ancient Chinese territory shape:Siratorikurakiti thought it is "long in south and north and short in east and west"; but Ku Chieh-kang thought it is "narrow in the north and the south but wide in east and west". As for the "China Barbarian Order", different from "Siratorikurakiti's view about distinguishing between Chinese and Barbarian", Ku Chieh-kang advocates that "integration of Chinese and other barnarian tribes" and highlight the role of the national fusion over the early period of the Chinese national formation.From the two concrete differences in conclusion in Yugong Geography, we see two different academic systems:Japanese scholars represented by Siratorikurakiti, departing from the western positivist historiography study theory, advocating the strict division between Asian nations established on the basis of the local authority, completely overturned the traditional Chinese ancient history system, and drew a brand new research conclusion represented by "killing". This research conclusion is adapted to the modern Japanese society's undergoing the transformation of ancient Chinese culture from reverence to degeneration, and becomes the propellant of this transformation. Ku Chieh-kang, using textual research of Chinese traditional historiography as the main research goal and methods, fully absorbs the contemporary community in archaeology, epigraphy and textual research on the geography of history research, and thus puts forward the "layer accumulation theory", striving for the overthrow of the traditional Chinese ancient history system, while at the same time establishing a new system of Chinese ancient history. Ku Chieh-kang launches the research on the history of geological evolution, points out the Chinese society facing "strong neighbor", however ignoring the fact that "most Chinese forget ancestors, echo of the status quo", which can determine, in the context of this situation, that Ku Chieh-kang's geographic evolution history studies also shoulder the mission of the times. |
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