Draft History of Qing

The Draft History of Qing (Chinese: 清史稿; pinyin: Qīng Shǐ Gǎo) is a draft of the official history of the Qing dynasty compiled and written by a team of over 100 historians led by Zhao Erxun who were hired by the Beiyang government of the Republic of China. The draft was published in 1928, but the Chinese Civil War caused a lack of funding for the project and it was put to an end in 1930. Both of the current regimes claiming Greater China have attempted to complete it.

The Qing imperial court had long established a Bureau of State Historiography and precompiled its own dynastic history. The massive book was started in 1914, and the rough copy was finished in about 1927. 1,100 copies of the book were published. The Beiyang government moved 400 of the original draft into the northern provinces, where it re-edited the content twice, thus creating three different copies of the book. It was banned by the Nationalist Government in 1930. A historian writes in retrospect, "Not only will the Draft History of Qing live forever, but also Qing history as such will forever remain in draft."

The draft contains 529 volumes. It attempts to follow the format of previous official histories, containing four sections:

Because of the lack of funding, the authors were forced to publish quickly, and consequently this project was never finished, remaining in the draft stages. The authors openly acknowledged this, and admitted there may have been factual or superficial errors.

The draft was later criticized for being biased against the Xinhai Revolution. Notably, it does not have records of historical figures in the revolution, even those that had been born before the end of the Qing dynasty, although it includes biographies of various others who were born after the collapse of the Qing dynasty. The historians, who were Qing loyalists and/or sympathizers, had a tendency to villainize the revolutionaries. In fact, the draft completely avoided the use of the Minguo calendar, which was unacceptable for an official history meant to endorse the rise of a new regime.

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