The year 1644 was a very important year in Chinese history, when Li Zicheng first attacked the city of Beijing, overthrew the Ming Dynasty, and forced the Chongzhen Emperor to hang himself. Just when people thought that this world would henceforth be the king of Li Chuang, Li Zicheng was defeated by Dolgun in the Battle of Shanhaiguan. Later, the Qing army entered the customs and captured Beijing. The Banner of the King of Chuangwang on the walls of Beijing became the Yellow Dragon Banner of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty began to rule China.
In 1645, the second year of the Qing Dynasty sitting in Beijing, Dorgon intended to revise the "History of Ming", which was also an important task he intended to open up an ideological front, through the compilation of the "History of Ming", on the one hand, to win the hearts of the people, on the other hand, to ideologically carry out a united front against the remnants of the Ming Dynasty, especially for the stubborn intellectuals of the Ming Dynasty, which could gradually make them take sides with the Qing Dynasty. For the faltering Qing Dynasty, in addition to suppressing it with eight banners and iron horses, this policy of huairou was even more important.
Of course, Dorgon's strategy of ideological unification is multifaceted and multi-level, and the revision of the History of ming is only one of them, and it is also the most urgent and important work. To this end, he specially opened the Ming History Museum, and carried out the top-level design of the organizational structure, ready to be compiled in the official name of the Qing Dynasty, the high specifications and strict organization were not inferior to a large-scale position war.
The first is the selection of team members. There was no one to worry about this, there were many Han Chinese in the Qing government at that time, and they were loyal and politically reliable. Therefore, Dorgon appointed Feng Quan, Hong Chengzuo, Fan Wencheng, Li Jianfeng and others as editors-in-chief, and equipped them with some literary talents to begin the compilation of the History of Ming.
However, this matter did not go well, the members of the team had not yet carried out their work, they were transferred from their posts, Hong Chengyu went to Jiangnan, where the anti-Qing movement rose and fell, and Dorgon transferred him to be the governor of Jiangnan and implemented the policy of appeasement. Others were also entangled in various things, and their enthusiasm for compiling the History of the Ming Dynasty was not high. Everyone is a late Ming Dynasty person, surrendered and reneged and became a vassal, and now compiling the "History of Ming", on the face of it, I feel ashamed of the old dynasty, I have no words to say, so I have to delay it again and again.
In 1671 (the tenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty), the Kangxi Emperor again planned to compile the History of the Ming Dynasty and continue to do this cultural project. He assigned Xiong Zhilu to preside over the work. Xiong Zhilu was a scholar of science at that time and had a high reputation. However, this person knows very little about the historical materials of the Ming Dynasty, and does not study much, and he knows that it is difficult for him to complete this work alone. So he found Gu Yanwu, who had the most authority on the study of Ming history, and hoped that Gu Yanwu could join his team and complete the work assigned by the Kangxi Emperor. In order to persuade Gu Yanwu, he also specially found a star-rated hotel, invited Gu Yanwu to pick up a big meal, and called Gu Yanwu's favorite nephew Xu Qianxue to accompany the wine, hoping to take down Gu Yanwu in one fell swoop through this ingenious arrangement.
Eating can be done, and drinking alcohol is also successful, that is, participating in the compilation of the "History of Ming". Gu Yanwu immediately put down his wine glass and shouted, "If there is such a move, if you don't push and escape for Mezi, you will die for Qu Yuan!" "It means that I would rather die like Qu Yuan than work for the Manchu Qing government." As a result, the compilation of the History of ming was halted again.
In 1678 (the seventeenth year of Kangxi), the Kangxi Emperor planned to compile the History of Ming again, this time more solemn than the last time, which was also a major event to be done after Kangxi pro-government. To this end, he specially opened a erudite hongzi department, recruited talents, and reserved literati to participate in the compilation of the "History of Ming", bringing together more than thirty people, famous such as Li Yindu, Zhu Yizun, Mao Qiling, Wang Wan, Chen Weisong, Shi Yanzhang and others. However, among so many people, there is not a single person who picks a big beam, and everyone wants to come and go, and the cultural project of compiling the "History of Ming" is only Gu Yanwu who is qualified to pick this big beam. But this person has a strange temper and a stubborn temperament, so what should I do?
This time, they sent another person to call Ye Fangxiao to do the work. This Mr. Ye is a member of the compilation team and a fellow villager of Gu Yanwu, and he is a few years older than Gu Yanwu and has high moral standing. Let him come forward, Gu Yanwu should be able to give face and participate in this work. The reason for the invitation was also thought about for a long time, and finally decided to let Gu Yanwu come out to take the erudite Hongzi test first, and then participate in the compilation of the "History of Ming".
After making preparations, Ye Fangxia found Gu Yanwu to explain his intentions, and as a result, Gu Yanwu, who was more than sixty years old, did not show mercy to his fellow countrymen, and he shouted again: "What the seventy-year-old man he asked for, he is indebted to death, if he will be forced, he will be martyred!" "The temperament is as stubborn as last time, and ten cows can't move. Ye Fangyi didn't have any temper at all, and could only shake his head and leave.
Gu Yanwu refused the Qing government's invitation one after another, what was the reason? This matter must start from the following aspects.
Gu Yanwu began to study Ming history from a young age, and when he was a teenager, he said that "the works of fu history books are based on the past and so on", believing that the purpose of studying history is for today. Since that time, he has paid special attention to history, especially to the history of the Ming Dynasty, not only reading the records of the Ming Dynasty, but also reading the Di Bao in recent decades, and doing a lot of understanding of the historical facts of the Ming Dynasty, the prosperity and replacement, and the evolution of the canon system.
At the age of 23, that is, in 1644, after the Qing army entered the customs, Gu Yanwu participated in the work of resisting the Qing and restoring the Ming Dynasty, and fled in Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Kunshan, Suzhou and other areas. Later, the rule of the Qing government gradually stabilized, and Gu Yanwu traveled to various provinces, made friends with people of insight, and began to concentrate on reading and writing. According to the information he collected over the years, he wrote books such as "Records of the Ming Dynasty", "Chronicle of the Three Dynasties", "Chronicle of Saint An", "Preparation of The History of The Emperor Ming Xiuwen", etc., and made full research and preparations for many fields such as river canals, enlistment, tuntian, agricultural affairs, and water transportation in the Ming Dynasty, and did a lot of work for himself to independently complete the compilation of the "History of Ming".
As a result, in the second year of the Kangxi Dynasty, a person named Zhuang Tingxin, a large household in Huzhou, who had money in his family, because he was blind in both eyes, but he wanted to live forever, thinking that Zuo Qiuming was blind, because he had compiled a "Zuo Biography" and passed it down to this day, so he looked for an opportunity to compile a history book and make himself famous for eternity. By chance, he got a manuscript of the "History of Ming" compiled by the late Prime Minister Zhu Guozhen, and felt that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Blind in both eyes and without too deep a foundation in learning, the difficulty of this work can be imagined. But he had money and recruited many Jiangnan celebrities at that time to do this work together.
Two people involved in this work knew Gu Yanwu, one named Wu Yan and the other named Pan Taojuan, both literary young people in their early twenties and very accomplished historians. For this "History of The Ming Dynasty", the two people put a lot of effort into it, spent money to buy the records of the Ming Dynasty dynasties, collected the Ming Dynasty anthologies collected by the people, and worked hard to sort them out. Gu Yanwu looked at the young talents so attentively, and also lent them one or two thousand copies of the historical records and sonatas he had collected and sorted.
Who knew that this incident was finally falsely accused and turned into a literal tragedy, when the Zhuang family and many people who carved books, sold books, carvers, printers, proofreaders, and so on were linked, and seventy-two people were killed and sent to hundreds of people in remote areas. Wu Yan and Pan Taozhang were also killed by Zhu Lian, and the music materials that Gu Yanwu lent to them were also burned. Gu Yanwu was deeply saddened by this, sighed that two young talents had been lost in the world, and specially wrote a poem entitled "Fenzhou Sacrifice Wu Yan and Pan Taozhang ErjieShi": "A generation of articles died zuoma, and Qianqiu Renyi was in Wu Pan." This incident was also written by Mr. Jin Yong in the first chapter of "Deer Ding".
This incident was a great blow to Gu Yanwu, and he was no longer interested in participating in the compilation of the History of Ming. Therefore, there was great resistance to the Qing government's compilation of the History of the Ming Dynasty.
In addition, Gu Yanwu had special respect for his adoptive mother Wang Clan and was proud to have such a mother all his life. Wang was originally the daughter-in-law of Gu Yanwu's uncle Gu Shaofu, but before he could pass the door, Gu Shaofu's son Gu Tongji died prematurely. After wang learned about it, not only did not quit the marriage, but instead devoted himself to marrying into the Gu family, becoming a daughter-in-law, and taking good care of her in-laws and mother-in-law. In order to cure her mother-in-law's illness, she cut off her fingers and boiled medicine, which was rumored to be a good story in Kunshan. When Wang was twenty-eight years old, he raised Gu Yanwu, set strict requirements on him from an early age, supervised his studies, and taught him to be wise and reasonable. At the age of fifty-one, the Chongzhen Emperor erected the Zhenxiao Arch for her, which was a great honor at that time.
After the Qing army captured Nanjing, the Wang clan called Gu Yanwu to his side and said, "Although I am a woman, I am a woman who has received the favor of the country and died with the country, and I am righteous; Ru Wu is a foreign subject, has not lived up to the grace of the world, and has not forgotten the legacy of my ancestors, then I can go underground." After saying these words, she died for seven days and seven nights. Gu Yanwu remembered his adoptive mother's testament and naturally ignored the Invitation of the Qing Government.