Studies Of Yu Hao And The Historical Literature And Textual Research Of The Western Regions

The Historical Literature and Textual Research of the Western Regions writtenby Yuhao was one of the historical and geographical works of Northwest China in theQing Dynasty. By studying the ancient literature and related books at that time theauthor, Yuhao, finished his textual criticism on the Western Region but he had neverbeen to the area in his life. Although a few copies of the book have been passeddown and the record about the author were rare, the book is valuable for the study onthis area. The book contains a lot of historical materials about history and geographyof the Western Regions written between the Han Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, aswell as detailed analysis of these materials made by the author himself.The main text is divided into four parts：The first chapter is the introduction of Yu Hao and research on versions of thebook. Based on relevant documents, this chapter gives a brief discription of Yu Hao’slife experience, circle of acquaintances and his works’ circulation and explores theacademic and cultural background of Yu Hao. According to a wide range of datacollection, this part contrasts different versions of the book, such as the existingDaoguang twenty-seven years version, Daoguang twenty-eight years version,Guangxu block-printed edition, Li Wentian group etc. and makes version researcheson each of them.The second chapter discusses the publication background and the contentsystem of The Historical Literature and Textual Research of the Western Regions.This chapter is the key part of this thesis. After writing the background and academicatmosphere of the book, this chapter gives an overview of the book on the westernregional history and the description of the mountain, water, valley, and the fort and,according to historical events mentioned in the book, analyses the relationshipbetween the Central Plains and different ethnic groups, the political strategy to theWestern Regions made by the Central Governments and the " frontier " tenet hold byYuhao. This chapter also points out the basic style and structure of the book.The third chapter shows the historical sources and application of The HistoricalLiterature and Textual Research of the Western Regions. Using the four partclassification method, the historical materials in the book can be classified by titles,authors, reference ways and existing situations. Through specific examples, referenceways of historical materials are divided into two kinds, the direct inheritance and thetextual research on the historical facts.The fourth chapter is the value analysis of The Historical Literature and TextualResearch of the Western Regions. This chapter focuses on the influence of this book on the works of later scholars and analyzes the following three aspects of the value ofthe book: offering historical and geographical materials, preserving literaturecontents and collecting mistakes of the historical record.