On January 19, Southern Weekly's top ten books of 2023 were released, and "E Research Story Collection: From the Early Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China" was selected. In the testimonial, the bibliophile Mr. Wei Li commented that the author Ai Junchuan re-sorted the well-known stories in modern history, and adopted various ways to break down the problems that most people are familiar with and make a new interpretation.
Professor Gao Fengfeng of Peking University included this book in his 2023 book list, believing that most of the articles in the book, as long as you read them calmly, can read the fun of detective novels, as well as sympathy and compassion for historical figures. The following is the full text of Professor Gao Feng's commentary, reprinted from Southern Weekly:
This book is a collection of Mr. Ai Junchuan's literary and historical research articles in recent years. "e-Evidence" refers to the use of databases and Internet searches to complete the research work more quickly and efficiently. Ten years ago, the author wrote an article entitled "A Brief Discussion on E Evidence" (included in "Reading and Living"), which introduced the research tools in this digital age and several breakthrough studies he has completed. In the "Preface" of this new book, the author brings more research results and more research experience, and makes an outline and summary of "e-evidence", and puts forward the four principles of "literacy, hyphenation, knowledge, and etiquette", which summarizes the essence of historical evidence with familiar idioms. Here is a brief description of the author's definition. Literacy is to maintain a sensitivity to the literary language, because sometimes the words and sentences of ancient Chinese are concise, sometimes the style of writing is exaggerated, and the meaning is not clear at a glance. Hyphenation is to accurately identify the unrecognizable words on rulers, manuscripts, calligraphy and paintings (the author himself is a peerless master in this field). Knowing books is to understand commonly used historical books and reference books, and once you find clues on the Internet, you know where to follow them next. Dali refers to "having an understanding of the old officialdom system, social customs, and even human feelings." These four principles and eight big characters actually describe in simple and friendly language the comprehensive training that researchers need in philology, bibliography, bibliography and historiography. There are more than 20 essays in the book, focusing on historical figures in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. Each article is full of distinctive "Ehrlich style", starting from newly discovered materials or unknown documents, with the help of the "e-evidence" weapon, to search for more clues, spell out the touching pictures that have been lost in history, so that we have a richer and more multifaceted understanding of historical figures. Each article uses a scientific and rigorous approach to reach an unbreakable conclusion. Each article can be unprecedented, full of true originality, and will embarrass many scholars with equal papers and projects.
Because of its strong professionalism (you can't talk about mysteries all day long), high academic threshold (you can't only read three or four "classics" all day), and emphasis on evidence and methods (you can't talk about feelings and jokes all day long), research is often misunderstood and thought to be trivial, branchy, and boring. But a close reading of Mr. Ai's research often changes our fixed impression of historical figures. The first article in the book analyzes a batch of Fu Shan's letters, first correcting the errors in the transcripts, revealing the author's "hyphenation" skills. Because of the lawsuits of relatives and friends, Fu Shan frequently asked the Qing court magistrates who were good friends with him in his letters, which just let us understand many historical details of the Qing Dynasty's litigation and officialdom. Fu Shan has always been a respected "Ming relic", and in his later years refused to take the erudite macro vocabulary exam. However, according to the author's analysis, Fu Shan's "non-cooperative" attitude during the Shunzhi period was not clear, at least because of daily affairs from time to time with local officials. This is to go one step further in knowing people and talking about the world. Another example is the study of Gu Hongming's Mongolian textbook "Mengyang String Song", let us know that the English professor who was dismissed by Peking University in 1920, the stubborn royalists, in the textbook selected for primary school students in 1900, selected poems "flashing with a rare warm light", and his poetic teaching ideas are very likely to have influenced the teaching regulations of primary and secondary schools drafted by Zhang Zhidong later. This kind of evidence allows us to reduce some of our understanding of Gu Hongming. Another example is the article "Zhou Zuoren's New Poetry Study", the author found the handwriting of Zhou Zuoren's comments on the manuscript of the poems of Sun Yaogu, a female college student in the Republic of China (another example of "hyphenation" kung fu), and further searched for learning through the Internet, restoring the bumpy life of Sun Yaogu, a Chinese teacher in Guiyang, which makes people feel infinitely bitter. In the "Collection of Stories of E-Research", some articles have a high reading threshold, which requires readers to have more knowledge of literature and history of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. But the vast majority of articles, as long as you read them calmly, can read the fun of detective novels, as well as sympathy and compassion for historical figures. Even for a perverse person like Yuan Shikai, the photos he took in the Huanshang Village Yangshou Garden for public opinion warfare and with cosplay features will make the corners of our mouths rise with a smile of appreciation.
(This article was originally published in Southern Weekly Issue 2081 on January 11, 2024, with the original title "Gao Feng's 2023 Booklist")
Attached: Southern Weekly 2023
Top 10 Books and Recommendations
Each era has its own academic characteristics, and Shi Tao's statement that "pen and ink should be used in the times" has been widely quoted by later generations, and this sentence can be applied not only to art, but also to academic research. He believes that E-evidence allows scholars to skip the traditional accumulation links and professional barriers through database and Internet searches, and directly search for evidence clues, which can greatly improve efficiency and expand academic boundaries. His approach to research may seem trivial, but it all has a central theme. By rearranging and combining these articles, we can see what kind of mind he has, and he is recombing the familiar stories in modern history, and adopting various ways to break down the problems that most people are familiar with, and make a new interpretation. (Wei Li)
(This article was originally published in Southern Weekly Issue 2082 on January 18, 2024)
"E Examination Story Collection: From the Early Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China" by Ai Junchuan 978-7-101-15921-978.00 yuan
（统筹：一北；编辑：思岐）