A Study On Sun Chengze’s Shan Shu

In the beginning of the Shunzhi Emperor and the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, there were turncoat officials who wrote history books. Generally, they can be defined as “Historians of turncoat officials”. They were the important participants in the historiography field in early Qing Dynasty. Especially their writings on history of the Ming Dynasty had their distinctive particularity and the times. In this kind of history writings, Sun Chengze’s Shan Shu possesses a typical significance. At present, the academic’s research about the turncoat officials historian’s writings on history of the Ming is still weak relatively. This thesis focus on Shan Shu as the main object and hopes to find the main achievements of the “Historians of turncoat officials”.The government of the Qing Dynasty’s collecting historical materials about the Ming Dynasty was the objective factor of Shan Shu’s written, as well as the general mood of society for private writing history, and the circulating of the government announcement of the Ming Dynasty. Sun Chengze’s willing to keeping the history for the motherland and washing off the opprobrium of turncoat officials for himself, were the inner motivation behind his writing. Shan Shu was accomplished on the background of this atmosphere.Shan Shu is a “Chongzhen record” which was privately edited,and it keeps a great deal of imperial edict, memorial to the throne and the scene about the communion between the emperor and ministers which he saw with his own eyes. Shan Shu was an important document source book of the History of the Ming Dynasty. It means that Shan Shu had the high historical value. But retrieving the full text of Shan Shu, there were scarcely any single literary piece about the historical facts between the Ming Dynasty and Late Jin(the Qing Dynasty). Because the increasingly tense political environment and fear mentality, the author described a length of scene on the end of Ming Dynasty without Late Jin(the Qing Dynasty). This could be concluded that the author adopted the shielding standpoint for two dynasties.The thesis researches the turncoat official historian`s writings on the history of the Ming Dynasty, finding some similar experience from these writing. For example, they became the new dynasty’s officials when the homeland disappearing. They missed the Ming Dynasty while feared the politic pressure from the Qing Dynasty. They were ambivalent since it is a difficult choice that how to choose “keeping a true history of Ming period” and “setting up the perpetual feudal ethics”. The ambivalence was “missing homeland” mixed with “fearing actuality”. Though their history researching limited, while on the other hand they turned to be the origin of such kind of history writings on the Ming Dynasty written by the authors in the reign of the Qing Dynasty.