Zhao Shaozu's Achievement Of Historiograpy

As a local scholar of AnHui Province, Zhao Shaozu produced a great number of different kind of works all his life. He is expert in Historiogrpahy, in which his typical writings included Xin Jiu Tang Shu Hu Zheng twenty volumes; Tong Jian Zhu Shang eighteen volumes; Xiao Bu Zhu Shu Ji Nian two volumes; Jian Yuan Ji two volumes; He also especially preferred the stele edition, and was good at inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets. In this field, his writings included Jin Shi Wen Chao eight volumes; Jin Shi Xu Chao two volumes; Gu Mo Zhai Jin Shi Ba six volumes; An Hui Jin Shi Lue ten volumes; Jing Chuan Jin Shi Ji two volumes. He had some effect during Jia-Dao Period of Qing Dynasty.The period of Qian-Jia in Qing Dynasty, the textual research inherited positivism history thinking from the past dynasties learning of China and its historiography regarded the"seeking truth from facts"as the criterion, emphasized to seek the facts, and devoted themselves to emendate and annotate the ancient books, collected the ancient writings, rectified and supplemented the ancient history and researched the historical facts. The ancient historical criticism of China also achieved the glorious stage at this period. Influenced by this kind of learning atmosphere, Zhao Shaozu argued the historians should write what really happened to obtain the credible history under the principle of the idea of"seeking truth from facts". When researching and evaluating the new and old Tang Book, Zi Zhi Tong Jian annotated by Hu Shanxing, Zhao Shaozu firstly emendated the history books by using the correct pronunciation, punctuation diction, character meaning, shew toboo words and collated the disorder, superfluity, difference of history. Secondly, he searched various historical data to rectify the contradiction and mistake of historical records and literature inaccuracy. Zhao Shaozu's textual criticism was relatively overall, which was embodied by collated the time, reign title, name and another name, the year of birth and death, pedigree, events, calendar, bureaucracy system, geography, institutions, besides, he also analyzed the inaccurate reasons of historical records. Affected by Qian DaXin, Hong Liangji and other scholars, Zhao Shaozu extremely attached importance to geography. His Tong Jian Zhu Shang was largely about textual criticism of geography and had a deep research for abolition and establishment of a county, separation and consolidation borders, subjection and change. In addition, emendation was associated with the textual research of historical materials. Zhao Shaozu's textual research of historical literature was also the textual criticism of historical facts. Thirdly, under the influence of historical criticism of Song Dynasty, especially Wu Zhen's criticism toward the New Tang Book in The Correction of New Tang Book and Wang Yinlin, Hong Mai and other scholars, who combined the textual research with comments and expressed their review by research of historical facts, Zhao Shaozu also involved the thought of historiography when he criticized the historical descriptions. His review towards the history books was often expressed by slight place and he had many opinions on selecting the historical data, arranging stylistic rules and layout, historiography methords, how to choose the words, how to describe the relative historical facts, review of historical records. Thus, Zhao Shaozu's reviews of historiography become history comment. He remarked on some history character and events, which embodied his overall views of history.Zhao Shaozu's methods in textual criticism were various. He not only absorbed predecessors'thought, but also got rid of the stale and brung forth the fresh, which made him master criticism methods of various ways, including proving history by scripture, criticizing history through epigraphy, proofing history by means of edition and catalogue, criticizing history by way of character and phonology. They were united to use. Especially, Zhao Shaozu addicted himself to the stele edition. He sought primitive stele himself and supplemented the hiatus of historical records, rectified, confirmed the error by inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets, which made him have new acquisition. At the same time, Zhao Shaozu also carried out relatively careful criticism for the authors, age, process of spreading of inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets by document, which assured its value by rectified the mistake of stele character, supplemented the hiatus of inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets, enriched the omission of inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets, criticized the inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets.Arranging and engraving the local literature were Zhao Shaozu's another important contribution for historiography. He and his younger brother Zhao Shengzu collected the works of elder generation J from Ming Dynasty to the age when Zhao Shaozu lived in JingChuan region, through which Zhao Shaozu edited Jing Chuan Chong Shu.He also put his own writings into Gu Mo Zhai Ji and engraved it. Moreover, he collected local inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets of Jing County and An Hui, and wrote Jing Chuan Jin Shi Ji, An Hui Jin Shi Lue. Zhao Shaozhu emendated the local literatue, engraved the inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets, which were beneficial for the criticism learning of Qing Dynasty and especially the further development of the criticism learning of history.Zhao Shaozu's criticism for history reflected the historiography tendency of the later QianJia period. He continuously paid attention to collecting, saving, editing, engraving and using the document, carried out emendation with different edition of historical records and comprehensive quote in textual criticism. Although some ancient books were missing or incomplete, Zhao Shaozu's edition, in which those historical data might be used for collation and research, was more complete than the edition today or different with the version today.His historical textual research provided references for the later generation scholars and made certain contribution for study in later generations historiography, especially the history of Tang Dynasty, Tong Jian annotated by Hu Shanxin and historiography criticism. However, as a local scholar of AnHui Province, the academic condition of Zhao Shaozu was finite. His research had many shortcomings, some textual criticism was debatable, some evaluation was extreme, and some was too trivial. He couldn't carry out global investigation and theoretical summary for research. However, we should evaluate the value of his historiography objectively.