The Historical Construction Of The Image Of Mao WenLong

Mao Wenlong (1576-1629) is a well-known military officer in Liaotung against Later Jin in late Ming dynasty. In 1621, he started the"Battle of Zhenjiang", attacking and seizing Zhenjiang. Later he occupied Pidao in the costal area of Liaotung and was promoted to be the general officer of the military in Liaotung. With Pidao as the base, he made his time for eight years. In 1629, Mao Wenlong was killed by Yuan Chonghuan (1584-1630) in Pidao. Mao Wenlong had been considered as Man of the Year in Liaotung in late Ming for nearly ten years since the Battle of Zhenjiang, but scholars hold quite different opinions when evaluating his deeds. Those who approve his achievements believe that he had played an important role in holding back the military force of later Jin while opponents think that he made a false report about his battle achievements, tyrannized the Korean kingdom and intrigued with Later Jin.In particular, the issue whether Mao Wenlong or Yuan Chonghuan is right has been a focal problem. Previous study on Mao Wenlong is simply based on the value judgment of distinguishing good and evil, which is full of personal feelings. This way of study is not prone to objective results. On the basis of numerous references, this article absorbs previous research achievements while abandon the traditional way of evaluating people. Besides, in this article the problems of whether Mao Wenlong or Yuan Chonghuan is right and whether it is right to kill Mao Wenlong are not the focal points, whereas attitudes of the literati and officialdom class in Ming dynasty, the Korean kingdom, which had a long-term relationship with Mao Wenlong, and Later Jin, which had fought against him for a long time, towards him and their evaluation on him after his death is the subject of this article. Underlying causes for these evaluations are explored in order to clarify the relationship between the subjective perspective and historical facts in the historical construction of the image of Mao Wenlong.In the end of this article, it is concluded that, factors, such as the diversification of the information source, the relationship with others, different interests of countries, the way of study taken by historians and different materials held by scholars, all have an impact on the evaluation on Mao Wenlong, which have great effects on the construction of historical images.