Mingshi
| History of Ming | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 明史 | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 明史 | ||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Míng Shǐ |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | Bêng-sú |
| Tâi-lô | Bîng-sú |
The History of Ming, History of the Ming, or The Ming History (Míng Shǐ) is one of the official Chinese historical works known as the Twenty-Four Histories of China. It consists of 332 volumes and covers the history of the Ming Dynasty from 1368 to 1644. It was written by a number of officials commissioned by the court of Qing Dynasty, with Zhang Tingyu as the lead editor. The compilation started in the era of the Shunzhi Emperor and was completed in 1739 in the era of the Qianlong Emperor, though most of the volumes were written in the era of the Kangxi Emperor.
The sinologist Endymion Wilkinson writes that the Mingshi, the second longest of the Twenty-Four Histories, after the History of the Song, is "generally reckoned to be one of the best of the Histories and one of the easiest to read."
After Qing Dynasty has entered and hosted the Chinese Central Plain, in the second year of Shunzhi Emperor, The Censor Zhao Jiding () was requested to compile the History of Ming On May of the ShunZhi Emperor 2nd year, the court of Qing Dynasty established the committee consisted of the Grand Secretary Feng Quan, Li Jiantai, Fan Wencheng, Gang Lin, and Qi Chongge as the presidents to operate the compiling the History of Ming. In the same year, the presidents nominated the vice presidents and compilers, also nominated seven Zhang Guans, ten transcribers of Manchu language, and thirty-six transcribers of Chinese language to lift the curtain on compiling the History of Ming.
The official compiling of History of Ming started on May 2 in the second year of Shunzhi Emperor. At that time, which is the early years that the Qing first entered and hosted the Central Plain. With the obvious purpose of compiling the History of Ming, the Qing dynasty intended to declare the collapse of Ming, however, the court of Hongguang (founded by the Ming imperial clan) with capital of Nanjing was antagonistic to the Qing, and the compiling of History of Ming was the announcement of inexistence of Hongguang Court. On May 15, the Army of Qing broke through Nanjing, and the Hongguang regime was destroyed. Zhu Yujian, the clan relative of Ming founded a new court called Longwu at Fuzhou. Meanwhile, Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant uprising army jointed with the Ming’s governor He Tengjiao, and fought against the court of Qing. It was impossible to concentrate a large member of stuffs to compiling the History of Ming in the unstable political and embattled situation. The turbulent situation lasted until the 22nd year of Qing’s Kangxi Emperor, the Kangxi Emperor conquered all opposing states and unified Mainland of China and Taiwan. In the stage 1, the court of Qing was busy on the conquest, so the compiling process basically had no progress.
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