Mr. Gu Cheng teaches in the Department of History of Beijing Normal University and is recognized as a contemporary master of Ming and Qing history. In 1978, Gu Cheng published the article "Li Yan Questions", which hooked up historical materials and closely studied, which attracted the attention of the academic community and became his famous work. In 1984, the History of peasant wars at the end of the Ming Dynasty was published, which opened up a unique empirical path for the study of the history of peasant wars. In 1997, the "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty", which was regarded as a companion article by Mr. Gu, came out, and the book has a wide influence at home and abroad. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and reader culture has republished this classic work. On April 24, Professor Peng Yong of the Minzu University of China and Yang Haiying, a researcher at the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, held a dialogue on "where Nanming died" in the end. The surging news selects its essence and organizes it into a text for the benefit of readers.
The scene of the event
The story behind the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty
Peng Yong: I first applied for Mr. Gu Cheng's graduate school in 1994. I graduated in 1995 with a master's degree in 1992, so I went to Mr. Gu's house in the autumn of the previous year to visit and proposed to mr. Gu that I wished to apply for his doctorate. Mr. Gu welcomed him at that time, and told me that because of the book "History of the Peasants' War at the End of the Ming Dynasty", publishing institutions, including the Henan People's Publishing House, had contacted him and expressed their desire to publish Mr. Gu's other books, but at that time, the "History of the Southern Ming" in Mr. Gu's hand had not yet been published, so the pressure to write books was still very great.
After I entered school, Mr. Gu would tell me some stories from time to time when I wrote the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty. Mr. Gu has published two monographs, one is "History of Peasant Wars in the Late Ming Dynasty" and the second is "History of southern Ming". The History of the Southern Ming Dynasty was not completed until 1997, and the two books were separated by more than 10 years. In fact, after writing the "History of the Peasants' War at the End of the Ming Dynasty", Mr. Gu immediately began to write the "History of the Southern Ming", but the history of the Southern Ming was indeed very complicated; in addition, mr. Gu found that the Ming Dynasty's health center system was too important when writing, so he temporarily shelved the writing of the "History of the Southern Ming". From 1986 to 1989, he published four articles on the Ming Dynasty health center system, such as "A New Exploration of the Number of Cultivated Land in the Early Ming Dynasty" and "The Territorial Management System of the Ming Empire".
Mr. Gu's style of study is very rigorous, and he is hand-copied historical materials. The paper used for transcription is a special manuscript paper customized in the printing plant, which is one size larger than our current A4 paper. When Mr. Gu copied the historical materials, he would leave 1/3 of the blank space so that he could make comments on the side. His handwriting is very beautiful, Mr. Bai Shouyi edited the "General History of China", the Ming History section has an inscription inscribed by Mr. Gu. Mr. Gu's historical materials are copied from the library little by little, and what impressed me most was that Mr. Gu once mentioned that he had gone to Kunming to find historical materials for more than a month. The last few years of the Nanming Yong calendar were active in Kunming, and Mr. Gu lived in Kunming for more than a month, copying materials every day, including many precious materials.
Today, many scholars, especially scholars of Ming and Qing history, advocate collecting new materials and running fields, in fact, the method of Collecting Materials by Mr. Gu was also a form of running fields (although Mr. Gu stayed in the library every day and did not have time to really run out and take a look). Mr. Gu also told me that the "History of the Peasants' War at the End of the Ming Dynasty" and the "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty" are both about the history of the peasant army fighting wars in the localities, so one of the ways mr. Gu read the local chronicles is to follow the route of the peasant wars, and wherever he fights, he will go to see the local chronicles, so He finally came to Kunming and lived in Kunming for more than a month. Mr. Li read the local chronicles one by one in this way, so many people use "exhaustion and fishing" to describe the spirit of his study of materials. Although the materials of the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties are too complex to be "exhausted and fished", it is not necessary or possible to achieve "exhaustion and fishing", but this spirit of governance is worth learning today.
Speaking of the "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty", Mr. Gu also said that the reason why he was reluctant to deliver to the publishing house was also because he had been handwriting, writing that there was new material, he had to change it; if it was chaotic, he had to copy it again. Every time Mr. copied and changed it again, it took half a year, and when we later sorted out Mr. Zhang's manuscript, we found that there were many package manuscripts, and Mr. Li's manuscript was covered with an old wall calendar, and then took a large clip to clip it, one by one, and now these manuscripts are donated to the library of Beijing Normal University. In the afterword of the "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty", Mr. Li said that it was really difficult for him to be perfect, in fact, this was also because Mr. Wang's pursuit of scholarship was endless. At that time, many people came to ask him, saying that the "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty" was a sister article to the "History of the Peasants' War at the End of the Ming Dynasty", and his sister had been published for 10 years, so why did she not see her sister, in fact, this had a lot to do with Mr. Gu's way of studying.
Yang Haiying: Mr. Qin Hui wrote a book review for the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty at that time, entitled "Research on the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty and Gu Cheng's History of the Southern Ming", and Mr. Gu himself was very satisfied with this book review.
The book review mentions the "three transcendences" of the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty: one is the transcendence of traditional historiography, one is the transcendence of pre-reform historiography, and the other is the transcendence of popular historiography at that time. I think Mr. Qin Hui's summary has not become outdated until now. 25 years have passed, and as far as I know, there is no work in the field of Southern Ming history that surpasses Mr. Gu Cheng. Mr. Gu's combing and research on the history of the Southern Ming Dynasty laid the foundation for later studies and opened up a path.
I have not actually met Mr. Gu, but there are letters, and Mr. Gu once wrote me a reply. Around 2000, I published an article about the Longwu regime. I graduated from the Central University for Nationalities, is Mr. Wang Zhonghan's doctoral student, when he enrolled, Mr. Wang was already very old, so he assigned the master brother Yao Nianci to take us to do specific research work, Teacher Yao is very admired by Mr. Gu, often mentioned to us that Mr. Gu is a person born for academics. I graduated in 1996 and went straight to the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Mr. He Lingxiu became my business instructor at that time.
During my doctoral studies, Mr. Wang Zhonghan assigned me the title of my graduation thesis to write Hong Chengzuo, but after I touched a piece of material, I said that I could not write it, because there were already three related works published at that time, so I rewrote the Southeast Gentry. After entering the Institute of History, Mr. He Lingxiu suggested that I pick up Hong Chengzuo's research again. To study Hong Chengzuo, we must pay attention to Nanming. After Mr. Gu's "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty" was published, I bought it and read it for the first time.
Mr. Gu wrote about the Longwu regime in the "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty", mentioned the Zodiac Zhou, mentioned the pro-conquest of Emperor Longwu, and also mentioned Huang Binqing's inaction in Zhoushan, but it was relatively scattered. I am writing from another angle, focusing on how Hong Chengzu calmed the Southern Ming and stabilized Jiangnan, so these historical events can be analyzed in connection. At that time, I was also a little excited after writing the article, so I quickly sent it to Mr. Gu, and then Mr. Gu returned a letter to me, giving me recognition and encouragement.
Nanming's "infighting"
Yang Haiying: Mr. Gu has a paper entitled "The Eleventh Year of Shunzhi - A Critical Year of Ming and Qing Rivalry", in fact, for Nanming, there are many key time points. Longwu is a key point in time, the Yong calendar in the southwest is also a key point in time, and the anti-Qing struggle in the northern provinces represented by Jiang Ou in Shanxi is another key point, it can be said that the situation in The Southern Ming dynasty at that time was equivalent to constantly losing one opportunity after another, and without stepping on these key points, good opportunities were repeatedly ruined. The root cause of the break was infighting, not how powerful the Qing army was. Mr. Gu also mentioned that the Eight Banners are not invincible in the world, and many of the Qing generals are demoted generals, including those like Hong Chengyu. In fact, one of the keys to victory lies in how to employ people and what policies to adopt, compared with the Qing Dynasty, the Southern Ming Dynasty is because of internal struggle and step by step to failure.
Peng Yong: From my understanding, "infighting" itself is a more explicit statement, which is easy for readers to remember. From an academic point of view, it is actually the so-called party struggle, and the party struggle of the Ming Dynasty continued until the Southern Ming Dynasty. The so-called Donglin Party is nothing more than a group of temporary organizations for their own selfish interests, and this has been made very clear academically.
The so-called party struggle, or infighting, is nothing but a means and tool, and in the end it is not for the interests of the country, for the so-called revival of the Ming Dynasty, but only for the interests of its own clique. Just now, Teacher Yang specifically mentioned many key points, from the comparison of strength at that time, the situation is actually possible to be reversed. In the later period of the Southern Ming Dynasty, there was no strong political power, and many people sought their own private interests under the guise of the Southern Ming, which can be said to be infighting, or it can be said to be "a scattered sand". Everyone thinks that Zheng Chenggong and Li Dingguo are strong, but in fact, some of the forces that look very powerful are weak after adding up.
Mr. Gu used the word "fresh and shameful" many times in the "History of southern Ming", which is very emotional. "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty" I don't know how many times I have read it, because there have been several editions in the middle, I need to do proofreading, I need to read from beginning to end, Mr. Gu's words, I am too impressed, indicating that he has been angry to the extreme.
Yang Haiying: This is a particularly distinctive feature of the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty. The analysis of the whiplash and the back of the paper, coupled with the infectious language, so the reader loves to read, and I do think that reading it has a kind of chapter back to the wonderful novel.
Situ Lin's History of the Southern Ming Dynasty mentions that the Ming Dynasty had a large number of clans and no real power. But from Nanming's point of view, if so many clans can unite, it will also be a big force. The policy adopted by the Qing Dynasty was to gather the clans of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and then kill them, and if they found one, they would kill one, and the banner of the clan chamber would fall. Among the emperors of the Southern Ming Dynasty, Emperor Longwu was the most enterprising, and many of them had never set a far-sighted strategic plan, and they could count a day. Obviously, there are so many opportunities, but they can't see it at all, and even blindly command, burying a lot of opportunities. Therefore, the "History of Southern Ming" is indeed painful to read, although the opponent has also made many mistakes, but Nanming just did not seize the opportunity.
History of the Southern Ming Dynasty, Reader Culture, Beijing Daily Press, March 2022
Peasant armies and the national question
Peng Yong: The History of peasant wars at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty can be compared to read that the peasant army at the end of the Ming Dynasty actually ended a Ming regime that could not be sustained any longer. In the late Ming Dynasty, there were already many serious problems in this institution, and the Chongzhen Emperor himself could not solve them, otherwise there would be no outbreak of peasant uprisings. So in this sense, the Dashun and Daxi peasant regimes are a force that promotes the development of history.
However, by the time of the Southern Ming Dynasty, the situation had changed, and at this time, whether it was Dashun, Daxi, or southern Ming or Qing Dynasty, this kind of chasing deer in the world was a new pattern of power, a process of re-integration. If Nanming can combine with Dashun and Daxi at this time, this force is still very powerful, but the key is that Nanming is not aware of this. In the idea of the unification of the Southern Ming emperors, the officials who had once surrendered to Dashun and Daxi were not very acceptable, let alone to unite the forces that forced the Chongzhen Emperor to die? On the contrary, the peasant army realized that it wanted to unite, because they realized that some of the policies adopted by the Qing Dynasty after entering the customs were a threat to the broad masses of the people, so they began to seek alliance with the Southern Ming, which was indeed a matter of strategic vision.
Yang Haiying: Mr. Gu's evaluation of Shi Kefa is not high. But Mr. He Xiuling felt that it should not be so harsh, because this kind of transformation was too difficult for Shi Kefa and others, and "Pingkou" was a very important task they had undertaken since the end of the Ming Dynasty, and it was indeed very difficult to change from an enemy to a comrade-in-arms at once.
Peng Yong: In fact, it is also for their own immediate interests. At the beginning of the Qing army, it made many mistakes, at the beginning, the progress of the Qing army was quite smooth, and then it was shaved and changed clothes, which caused strong resistance, so it was quickly stopped. Teacher Yao Nianci has studied this problem.
Due to the emergence of the anti-Qing revival climax, Dorgon slowly began to change his policies, so the various forces are actually in a game. Mr. Gu talked about the problem of historical contingency and inevitability in the preface to the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and what he said was very classic. He believes that history is generally composed of factors of chance, and the so-called necessity means that history must develop and society must progress, which is also full of many variables and many accidents.
Yang Haiying: The "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty" is based on the anti-Qing struggle, which can be said to be based on the Ming, and the popular view at that time was based on the Qing and believed that the unification of the Qing was an inevitable trend in history. Gu Lao is not a hero who is a success or failure. The national contradictions at that time were actually unquestionable, not a simple "reinvention of the 20th century", and under the historical conditions at that time, there were indeed very serious ethnic contradictions.
If the national problem did not exist in the early Qing Dynasty, then there would not have been many anti-Qing movements in many places at that time. Jiangxi, Shanxi, Shaanxi, including the south, in just ten years, one place has been pacified and one place has risen again. As far as Hong Chengzuo, who I studied, went out of Zhenjiangnan for the first time and spent some time in Nanjing, he pacified the Longwu regime and the Lu Jianguo. But soon after, the people's anti-Qing struggle in the north rose again. Why did Jiang Ou, who had already surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and accepted the rule of the Qing Dynasty, turn around? Dorgon even personally marched twice, an unprecedented move. Datong was besieged for eight months without being captured, and Jiang Ou had no foreign aid at the time; if there was foreign aid, he might be able to win. There were too many such opportunities in the early Qing Dynasty. In the tenth year of Shunzhi, Hong Chengzuo passed through the southwest and sat in Changsha, and for more than four years he did not recover any land, and he stayed there for so long, but he could not take a step forward, why? In fact, the Qing Dynasty was simply not strong enough to rule such a large area. However, just because Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo had a contradiction, they fought again, which gave the Qing side an opportunity to take advantage of it. In fact, at that time, Hong Chengzu had already submitted his resignation twice, saying that he could not continue to work, his health was not good, and he asked for retirement. When his retirement report had just been sent out, the people who sun ke hoped to surrender here came, and he immediately thought that the opportunity had come, but the report had been handed out, and the Qing court had already seen through it thoroughly, so in the end it did not give Hong Chengyu a good look.
So in an era of earth-shaking and great changes, everyone thinks differently, chooses differently, and the results are of course different.
Peng Yong: At the beginning, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were under the guise of "revenge against the emperor and father" and accepted Han officials, but after two years, they began to implement some so-called perverse ethnic policies, which instead united some anti-Qing and restoration forces. For the later Rulers of the Qing Dynasty, the bridge of the contradictions between the Manchu and Han nationalities became a very critical issue, and the repetition of the Qing Rulers themselves in policy was also very fierce, which actually confirmed that the issue of ethnic relations was very important at that time.
Case: Liu Tongchun and Wu Xingzuo
Peng Yong: Mr. Gu once told me that when the first edition of the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty was in print, the publishing house once discussed with him whether it could put a little illustration, which might look better. Mr. Gu really chose for half a day, and in the end, he only chose the picture in Liu Tongchun's "Heavenly Nianlu".
Liu Tongchun, a person, was not listed in the "Biography of the Second Minister" and the "Biography of the Reverse Minister" in the "Biography of the Qing Dynasty", indicating that he may not have entered Qianlong's legal eyes and was not even qualified to be listed among them. But Liu Tongchun himself actually represents the fate of some warlords during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Liu Tongchun was a native of Taikang,Henan (belonging to Kaifeng Province), and served as the general manager of Fanta Qian. By the time the Peasants' War broke out at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty sent him to Beijing with soldiers from Henan to participate in the defense, and the Peasants' War was already in full swing. Liu Tongchun was very good at judging the situation, and as soon as he thought that the Ming Dynasty had run out of gas, he thought that it would be better to simply lower Da shun. At that time, Dashun was rushing to Beijing, and Liu Tongchun was arranged to guard Shanxi, responsible for local security, and won an official.
Mr. Gu attached many pages of the official tables sent by Da Shun to various places in the "History of the Peasants' War in the Late Ming Dynasty", and Liu Tongchun was one of them. Soon after Liu Tongchun surrendered, Li Zicheng entered Beijing and was soon driven out again, so Liu Tongchun began to wander. He did not follow Li Zicheng's army all the way south, but continued to wander and wander, because even if he returned to Henan, there would be various problems on the way. At that time, Liu Tongchun mainly relied on robbing the local people to feed his subordinates, so he was actually a stray kou. After hesitating for a few months, Liu Tongchun decided to surrender to the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty sent him an official, and later went to Jiangxi to serve as the capital. After the entire city of Nanchang was revived against the Qing Dynasty and restored the Ming Dynasty, this time Liu Tongchun was very determined not to surrender and not to rebel against the Qing, and also risked the killing of dozens of members of his family, shaved his hair, disguised himself as a monk and fled the city, and sent the news of nanchang's siege and rebellion directly to Nanjing. Later, Liu Tongchun fought for merit in this way, believing that if he had not passed on the news and moved the rescue troops, Nanchang City would have been finished long ago, and even the entire south would have been finished.
Liu Tongchun is a very interesting person, he repeats it over and over again, but finally he has a firm position - he has made a choice. In fact, I also asked my graduate and undergraduate students to do research to see how many surrendered, how many did not surrender, how many were killed, how many were killed by suicide, and how many hid in the mountains.
I think that people are a grain of dust in that era, and everyone makes different choices according to their own understanding and judgment, do not have too high requirements for the people at that time, and do not make too many moral evaluations and judgments. But those who are in high positions, such as Shi Kefa and Li Dingguo, naturally have to bear greater responsibilities and give up many things. For ordinary people, I think moral lashing and labeling are meaningless.
Yang Haiying: Like Zheng Zhilong, it is actually very critical, and the failure of the Longwu regime is largely due to the lack of his wholehearted support. He has his own interests, but I am also thinking about how I would choose and see the direction of the situation if I were in his position. Zheng Zhilong's choice was to follow the Qing Dynasty and asked his son Zheng Chenggong to follow him, but he did not expect that his son would not listen to him. I think that if Zheng Zhilong had chosen to cooperate with the Longwu regime, it would have been very likely that history would have been rewritten, because Zheng Chenggong would have persisted for so long, while Zheng Zhilong had been killed by the Qing court.
I have done research on the people in Jiangnan in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and I have paid attention to a Family of Shanyin surnamed Wu, the most famous of which was Shangshu Wu Dui, who was the governor of Jiliao in the ninth year of the Wanli Calendar, and later many of their families ran to Liaodong and settled down there. It's interesting that they have a lot of people in their family. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Wu Xingzuo, the envoy of Fujian, came from this family, "Hong Chengzuo was promoted to viceroy by the cabinet through the five provinces, and Wu Xingzuo was promoted to viceroy in three years from Zhi County. ”
After the Rise of the Jin Forces in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, some people in this family fled and many were killed, and Wu Xingzuo's father Wu Zhizhong was captured, and he later served as a housekeeper in Daishan Province for more than ten years. After entering the customs in the early years of Shunzhi, Wu Zhizhong began to be assigned to various places as zhixian and other officials, and Wu Xingzuo was also serving as a zhixian county for many times, and then relied on the armed confrontation and contest with Zheng Chenggong on the southeast coast, and won the "super promotion" of the Qing court by making great achievements, and suddenly rose from Wuxi Zhixian to Fujian and became a new upstart under his command.
Let's take a look at the trajectory of Wu Xingzuo's life, this big son from the Shanyin family in the Ming Dynasty, later became a wrapper under the Red Banner, and then pressed all his life to the side of the Qing, built ships in the southeast, organized the army, directly fought against Liu Guoxuan's sailors, and then became a new upstart class by merit. Yao Qisheng, who also made great contributions on the Fujian front, was also a Shaoxing native. These people really tied up all their lives, and Yao Qisheng also sold all his family property.
Therefore, in the face of your life-and-death struggle for the country, if you are still half-hearted, how can you succeed? We must put all our wealth on the table, so when we rethink Zheng Zhilong's half-hearted choice, we feel even more.
Peng Yong: We often say that "the wind knows the grass, and the board knows the sincere subjects", the more we are able to see the original face of history and the original face of people, and to see a mutation under the normal state of historical development, and often that is the truth of history.
What makes everyone very emotional about this period of history in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties is that it was originally one of the links in the entire dynastic succession, but what is different is that everyone will compare europe with its contemporaries. At that time, Europe had entered a fast lane of development, and in the late Ming Dynasty, there were some factors called the embryo of capitalism or modernization, and some people believe that this period was already the beginning of world integration.
After entering the Qing Dynasty, there is no doubt that Chinese society has returned to the traditional imperial era that we are very familiar with, although there is the so-called Kangqian prosperous era later, but at first glance, it is still a familiar taste. When we compare 1840 and 1644, we often find that after two hundred years, how we see things will be the same, and this crux of the problem can be found in the transition period from the Ming to the Qing, for example, the problem of the mentality of the remnants we just talked about was originally called "the remnants of the mountains and waters are written desolate", and finally can not stand the wrapping of the general trend of the whole era, and everyone has returned to this traditional order.
So by 1840 Chinese forced to open his eyes to the world, he would have discovered how Chinese society was so similar to that time in 1644—which may have been an inspiration for reading the History of the Southern Ming Dynasty. It is true that some say it is a "history of pain", but at the same time, it also gives us a good opportunity to reflect. As Mr. Gu Cheng said, if a conclusion of history is regarded as an inevitability, what is the difference between that and the providential care advocated by traditional dynasties? If we all take conclusions to argue for their inevitability, and there is no spirit of criticism and reflection, there is no need to study history and reflect on history.
(This article has been reviewed by Peng Yong and Yang Haiying)