Harmonization And Difference: Private Loyalty And Righteousness Historiography In The Early Qing Dynasty

The early Qing dynasty was a golden age in the history of ancient Chinese historiography in which a hundred schools of thought contended,and historiography flourished,once again culminating in the revision of private histories,with the flourishing of loyalty and righteousness historiography has became an extremely important historiographical phenomenon in the development of historiography during this period.In the midst of the changes of the early Qing dynasty,the complexities between society and politics,history and reality,and writing and reality,the scholars were faced with the reconstruction of self-worth and social value,so the traditional Confucian concept of loyalty and righteousness became the source of values for historians to examine history and determine right and wrong.The principle of loyalty and righteousness became not only the standard by which the scholars were measured in the world,but also the only means of establishing a good social order.Historians wrote about loyalty and righteousness to preserve the core values of traditional culture and to shape the world in accordance with moral principles.Due to the different identities and political stances of the authors,the content of private loyalty historiography,the historical ideas contained in the writings,and the realistic meanings expressed in the texts also have their different characteristics.The praise and criticism of historical figures usually contain their thoughts on social,political,cultural and personal ideals,as well as the interpretation of personal ideals and personal choices.Because historians held different political positions,their evaluations of historical figures were inevitably influenced by different degrees of subjectivity according to the needs of their political positions,which was particularly evident in the private loyalty historiography of the early Qing dynasty.For historians who defended the Ming dynasty,having lost their territory politically,the only way to preserve their homeland as well as their culture from extinction due to political and military defeat was through individual spiritual perseverance-historiographical writing.They took as their main criterion to judge whether they did not serve the second dynasty,actively resisted the Qing Dynasty and died in martyrdom;they chose historical materials mainly from contemporary history,and attached importance to the collection and acquisition of historical materials.However,due to the compulsion to make history,there are some omissions and shortcomings of over-decoration and deification.For the historians who supported the Qing dynasty,history was not only an academic category,but also a political tool for the long-term governance of the country.The characteristics of suppressing evil and promoting good through history and educating the world were more evident in the group of historians who supported the Qing dynasty.They took the promotion of loyalty and righteousness as an important content,and the standard of examination was from one to the other,name and merit;the scope of writing history was somewhat limited,and there were many taboos in historical affairs.The historical narrative avoids portraying the atrocities of the Qing army and has the element of defending the Qing court.For the historians who are not sure of their political stance,loyalty and righteousness are also the moral qualities they look for,and they admire both the loyal subjects and the righteous men who did not give up in the face of death.They believed that they were engaged in a respectable cause even though they were not perfect in the world,and thus their historical writings mostly included elements to defend themselves.Compared with the two types of historians mentioned above,the main characteristic of the loyalist standard is that loyal subjects do not have to die.This group of historians’ works on loyalty and righteousness are often contradictory due to changes in their political positions,and they are often mixed with personal feelings and misrepresentations.These three types of historians,mainly those who defended the Ming dynasty,shone brightly on the stage of loyalty and righteousness historiography from the Shunzhi to the mid-Kangxi period;later,the relic scholars died one after another,and the stray historians and those who supported the position of the Qing dynasty followed them,and after a period of continuous development,private loyalty and righteousness historiography gradually declined with the suppression of the official authoritarian cultural policy.Although the historians of the early Qing dynasty expressed the writing positions of different groups in the compilation of loyalty and righteousness historiography,reflecting the impact of the changing times on different groups of people.However,both historians who defended the Ming dynasty,those who supported the Qing dynasty,and those whose political positions were indeterminate were deeply aware of one thing: in Chinese society,loyalty historiography played an important role in the moral and cultural order;and they consciously wrote history to achieve the maintenance and establishment of the moral order.