Search

Emperor Ch'ien-lung had used the term "Ch'ien-kang tu-lan" ... (sovereign power should be grasped solely by the emperor) so often to justify his autocratic rule that the term has now become a common label to denote the autocracy of the Ch'ien-lung era by modern scholars. It is important to note that both the term itself and the Emperor's concepts of sovereign power were inherited from his grandfather Emperor K'ang-hsi and his father Emperor Yung-cheng, who had already used similar terms such as "ch'ien-kang tu-yü" (sovereign power should only be exercised by the emperor), and "ch'ien-kang tu-tuan" ... (state affairs should only be decided by the emperor) as their slogans. Emperor K'ang-hsi was the first Ch'ing emperor who gave a clear and thorough account of his role and responsibility as an emperor. He strongly identified himself as the ruler of China and loved to constantly remind his subjects the same. Emperor K'ang-hsi's ideas of himself being the supreme sovereign were formulated during the second and third decades of his reign. Since then, he did not tolerate any slight challenge to his sovereignty from any subjects including his crown prince. In order to uphold his sovereignty, he even deposed his crown prince and refused to appoint a new one. Emperor Yung-cheng modeled his mode of rule after his father's and justified his own autocratic rule by his father's as well. With a vision of demonstrating his almightiness as befitting a supreme sovereign, he boasted that he was at once able to perform the duties for his grand-secretaries, to manage the family affairs for his bannerman officials, and to handle those government businesses, that even the officials of the Six Ministries and the Censorate found hard or impossible to tackle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manchu emperors in the early and high Ch'ing periods played an important role in the compilation of official historical works. Emperor Shun-chih had already intended to compile a new general history with a view to reinforcing his rule. Instead of waiting for his court historians to submit drafts of official historical works upon completion, Emperor K'ang-hsi required them to turn in every 2-3 chapters of works-in-progress to him for inspection as they were written. This practice allowed him to closely monitor the progress of compilations and insure that the contents of these works were presented to his satisfaction. He also published his own treatises on history as guidelines for his subjects on the reading of historical works. Emperor Yung-ch'eng asserted that only official histories edited by himself were authentic versions of history, and that all privately published historical works were unreliable. Emperor Ch'ien-lung and his court historians advocated the view that the Emperor was the sole judge of history of their time. They also claimed that while the writing of history was the responsibility of court historians, making judgements of "praise and blame" regarding historical events was the monopoly of the Emperor. As a result, most historians (including court historians when they engaged privately in historical writing) of the Ch'ien-lung (1736-1796) and Chia-ch'ing (1796-1820) eras did not dare to write history or comment on historical works. They devoted themselves instead to textual research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late Ch'ing, Ku Yen-wu (1613-1682), Huang Tsung-hsi (1610-1695), and Wang Fu-chih (1619-1692) have been called "the Three Great Confucian Scholars of the Early Ch'ing Period." They were thus called in the late Ch'ing not only because they were respected by the academic world of that period, but also, and more importantly, because they were given a place on the altar of the Confucian Temple in 1908, which officaUy established their orthodox academic positions. Pdthough the three masters' thoughts and scholarship were prevelent during the "Fung-chih and Kuang-hsil eras (1862-1874, 1875-1908). there was great controversy amongst officials about the selection of the three masters into the Confucian Temple as all of them had served the Southern Ming Regime against the Ch'ing. Their political ideas were also attacked for having aroused anti-Ch'ing sentiments in the late Ch'ing period. As a result, before being accepted, four proposals were made and turned down within a period of thirty-some years. The fifth proposal was approved only after a heated debate for one year and eight months. The debate of the last proposal attracted the attention of some non-official scholars who also expressed their opinions on the appropriateness of giving the three masters a place on the altar of the Confucian Temple in newspapers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The official title t'ai-chien (..., written as ... in the Sui, T'ang, and Sung dynasties) was first used in the Sui dynasty to denote the Director of Chiang-tso ehien (..., or The Directorate of the Palace Building). From the T'ang to the Liao, dynasties, directorates increasingly adopted this title for their directors, and during the Yüan dynasty sixteen directorates used this title for their deputy directors. Although eunuchs served in the T'ai-fu chien (..., The Directorate of the Imperial Treasury) and the Chung-sheung chien (..., The Directorate for Felt Manufacture) during the Yüan dynasty, there is no evidence that any of them held the post of t'ai-chien. The first emperor of the Ming dynasty, Chu Yüan-chang (..., 1328-1398, r. 1368-1398), established twenty-four departments in the palace and used the title t'ai-chien for the eunuch chiefs of twelve of the departments which were called chien (..., directorate). From then on, t'ai-chien became the exclusive title for eunuchs. Following the expansion of eunuch power after the mid-Ming period, the heads and other senior members of the twenty-four palace departments were appointed as t'ai-chien. There were two other types of eunuchs in the Ming dynasty, who although they were not actually t'ai-chien, could hold the title when they were on special missions. The first types consisted of eunuchs of the T'ung-ch'ang (..., The Eastern Depot), who gained the title when they were assigned to investigate treasonable offences. The other eunuchs qualifying far this title were those sent by the Ming emperors to the frontier to keep watch on the troops in fighting against the invasion of the Manchus after 1626. Since all the Ming eunuchs with whom the Manchus communicated were either t'ai-chien or those who temporarily held that title, t'ai-chien was therefore mistaken as the name for eunuchs. Hence, when the Manchus first used eunuchs in their palace, they called all eunuchs t'ai-chien, including those who served in the beile's (..., imperial prince) residences. Moreover, when the Manchu government set up their eunuch hierarchy, they used t'ai-chien to designate the lowest ranking eunuchs, and added prefixes to the title t'ai-chien to define other ranks of eunnuchs. Since then, eunuchs have been generally known as t'ai-chein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In traditional China, astrological and meteorological manifestations were considered as signs to indicate the future happenings on earth. Therefore, the qualification of a military commander entailed an ability to understand these signs in order to gain a foreknowledge of movement in the enemy camp, whether fortune would favour the offensive or the defensive, the propitious moment to advance or retreat, and so on. There were many writings which contained the secret knowledge of reading military movements through the observation of clouds (yün ...) and vapours (ch'i ...); they were especially prevalent during the periods when China was afflicted by civil wars and foreign invasions. This article is a study of these writings from the Three Kingdoms to the Sui-T'ang periods. The article and another one entitled "A Survey of the Writings on Divination by Clouds and Vapours from Ancient Times to the Han Dynasty" (...) (Chung-kuo Shih Yen-chiu ..., vol. 1988 no. 1 [February, 1988) 133-139) serve as supplements to my book A Study of the Fragmentary Tun-huang Manuscript Chan Yün-ch'i Shu ... (Taipei: I-wen Publishing Company, 1985, with Ho Peng Yoke). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In late Ch'ing, when Tai Chün-heng (1814-1855) recompiled Tai Ming-shih's (1653-1713) collected works (wen-chi), he selected only about two hundred and fifty pieces of prose compositions, and abandoned more than sixty pieces that he criticized as too biased, too critical, and too carelessly written. According to current research, the number of Tai Ming-shih's extant prose compositions is two hundred and eighty - one, there-fore, if we accept Tai Chün-heng's account, at least thirty some prose compositions are still lost. I recently discovered in the Library of Congress one of Tai Ming-shih's lost writings: a preface, printed in his calligraphy, that he wrote for Chao Chi-shih's (1628-1706) Ch'ien-tieh po-yü, Some poems in the latter work reveal some of Tai's unknown activities in Peking between 1695 and 1697. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]