Research On "Living Diary"

Diary has its unique value in historical materials in the voluminous historical data in the late Qing Dynasty. Diary of Neng Jingju which we study spans 32 years including Xianfeng dynasty、 Tongzhi dynasty and Guangxu dynasty. The diary recorded Zhao Liewen’s personal life, the politics,the economy and the history of the late Qing Dynasty which the research value is bigger. This paper studies the main content and value of the diary that we utilize the simplified version which has been published by the Yuelu Publishing House recently.Firstly, the thesis will discuss the social background and academic background where Diary of Neng Jingju was created. About the social background, the thesis will mainly focus on discuss the social situations in different stages, including the situation where Zhao Liewen and their relatives flee in the period of occupation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the situation where Zhao Liewen worked as a helper of the military affairs in Zheng Guofan shogunate and where Zhao Liewen’s life in his later years after his hermitage social situation.The different stages of the social status directly affects Zhao Liewen’s composition. About the academic background, it will mainly expounds the enlightened literati in the late Qing Dynasty started to advocate the science of statecraft. Zhao Liewen was one of those with Statecraft Ideology.Secondly, the thesis will have a brief introduction about the contents and versions of Diary of Neng Jingju. Firstly, family and lifetime of Zhao Liewen will be introduced. Considering the diversity of contends, it will be divided into the following aspects:the account about the politics in late Qing Dynasty, the account about the economy in late Qing Dynasty, the account about the military affairs in late Qing Dynasty, the account about the foreign exchanges in late Qing Dynasty, the account about the famous people in late Qing Dynasty,the account about Zhao Liewen’s reading response and so on.Finally, the value and limitation in Diary of Neng Jingju will be discussed. This thesis first analyzes the account about value of Diary of Neng Jingju as historical data from different scholars in the history. Then on the basis of the research different scholars, the thesis will have a further research about the value of Diary of Neng Jingju as historical data, including some books recorded in the diary, the comment on people in Late Qing Dynasty recorded in the diary, the historical details Zhao Liewen experienced. This thesis also discusses the value of Diary of Neng Jingju as historical data in the literature, medicine and other aspects. At last this thesis can settle the limitations of diary, pointing out that sometimes the detail or not of the content is misconducted, sometimes the comment on people is unfair, sometimes missing text is illegible. And the reasons for this will be analyzed briefly.