At the end of the world, the time is silent. Suddenly, I received a page-by-page proof of the whole book of "Exploring the Micro of national history" sent by the Lianjing Publishing Company, and I was happy to know that this book would soon come out.
Fourteen of my treatises are in this book, all in English (only the second appendix, "Races Between Dynasties," is Chinese original). Lianjing Company invited six scholars (after the daimyo) to translate into Chinese, and then asked people to proofread it, and in late July this year, I came to Taiwan for a meeting (academician meeting) to take the time to read all the translations, and I admired the faithfulness of the translation and pen. In addition to expressing my deep gratitude to the translators, I have suggested only a few minor changes and added a number of per-sentence supplements. Now I re-read and find that the whole book has more than three hundred and ninety pages, and only a dozen or so points in the text need to be changed, which proves that the editors and editors of the United States have edited and printed it seriously, which is respectable and touching. In the appendix, I also saw a catalogue of works in Chinese and foreign languages specially compiled for me, which was already very good. Thank you very much!
When United Economics selected these fourteen treatises, it consulted with my close friend Professor Yu Yingshi (Yale University History Lecture). The title of the book, "Exploring the Micro of National History", was also agreed with Professor Yu, which means and praises. I like its brevity and readily agree that Chinese governing Chinese history is naturally "national history." "Exploring micro" can be translated as striving for depth and exploring subtlety, which is the main theme of the writing. If it can reach a few percent, I dare not say it, and my friends are generous and should be thanked.
The arrangement of the fourteen papers is roughly according to the nature of the papers, in the order of analogues. The first China's World Order (translated by Xing Yitian). The second treatise on the rise and fall of dynasties (translated by Chen Guodong) is more extensive. The third work and rest examination (translated by Liang Gengyao), the fourth female protagonist examination (translated by Lin Weihong), the fifth hostage examination (translated by Zhang Rongfang), and the sixth local government of the Ming Dynasty (translated by Zhang Yongtang), these four are social history and political system history. The next six (i.e., titles vii to xir) are economic history (translated by Chen Guodong, with a total of seven translations). The thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the last period are the history of historiography (translated by Zhang Rongfang, and even the first three are translated). All the translators are very careful in their writing. I am deeply grateful for the time-consuming and correct searching of the quoted texts, especially when it is time-consuming to return to the Chinese, and it is of great benefit to the reader.
Regarding the causes of these dozen articles, the order in which they came out, I would like to add a few explanations. The first article on China's world order was written for a symposium chaired by Professor J.K. Fairbank. In September 1965, the collection of papers was edited by Professor Fei and printed in 1968. There is a title page at the beginning of the volume that all the authors dedicated this book to Yang Liansheng, the Harvard Yenching Chair Professor of Chinese History. I was flattered. Recall that you may have spoken too much during the meeting, sometimes close to a speech. However, the similarities and differences in the use of the three characters of the "Fan Fan Fan" cannot be ignored. The sixth ming dynasty local government was to participate in the Ming Dynasty political system seminar chaired by Professor C.D. Hucker in August 1965, and the collection of papers was printed in 1969. Seminars of this type have been attended six times before and after. Each meeting has more than a dozen papers, which are jointly reviewed and quite laborious. Consecutive meetings were held in August and September of that year, when the mood was high and health may have been affected. In the past ten years, the Invited Tang History Society, the Legal History Society, and the Taoist History Society have all resigned.
The following parts of the third part, with the exception of the sixth and fourteenth parts, have been published in the Harvard Journal of Asia (HJAS for short). Later, I was included in two collections of essays: Studies on the History of Chinese Institutions (1961) and Essays on Sinology (1969). The bibliography does not list the individual texts received by each book. There are nine works on institutional history, all of which are found in HJAS, and there are fourteen articles in the "Sinology Scattered Strategies", which are found in HJAS and various places.
The eleventh article in the book was first published. "Interpretation of the Economic History of the Jin Dynasty" is the introduction to my doctoral dissertation, "Translation notes on the Food and Goods Of the Jin Dynasty". The paper was directed by Professor J.R. Ware. He was admitted in the winter of 1945 and became a doctor in February 1946. Professor Inwei is the editor-in-chief of HJAS and has been printed since 1946. He thinks that my paper, though solid and sometimes too rigid, is rarely inferred. There is indeed a lot to play in this question. But I was still an apprentice, and I dared to speak high. The next early publication was the thirteenth "Twenty-Four Historical Names Trial", which was read out at the American Oriental Society (AOS) and published in 1947 by HJAS. Dynasties rose and fell, and the essays on the work and rest examinations also used nearly fifteen minutes or even half an hour to give abridgements at the annual meetings of various societies. I remember that Professor Chen Rongjie advised me to criticize the theory of dynastic circulation abused by Westerners after the meeting, so there was a supplement to the "Game Between Dynasties" later, and there was still Yu Xue.
The fourteenth tang to ming dynasty official historiography was specially invited to the Symposium on the History of Asian Historiography held at the University of London in 1956. The scale of this meeting is not small, and the history of China has been written by sinologists from Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The United States only invited Owen Lattimore to join me, and I was the only Chinese writer, so I couldn't help but talk a little more during the meeting. After one meeting, Professor W. Simon laughed and said to me in Chinese, "You are the Lord of the Alliance." I said, "Don't you dare." The conference also invited the French sinology titan Professor Paul Demieville,Dai Lao, who could not come, and only wrote an article on Zhang Xuecheng, which was very exciting. If Dai Lao comes to be the lord of the alliance, he can deserve it. The congress's treatise on the history of China and Japan, entitled "Historians of China and Japan", was co-edited by two professors, W.G. Pulleyblank, and published in 1961. But before that, some articles had been translated into German, and my one was found in saeulum viii, heft 213.
Title IX Public Works (Construction Examination) was a lecture given in French in March 1962 at the college de flance in Paris. This is the honor that Dai Miwei arranged for me. The Faculty stipulates that it must be in French (English available at the University of Paris), and it is taught four times a week (as a visiting professor in that month), with a large audience and many experts. I didn't have enough French, so I wrote an English manuscript, and asked Dr. Donald Halzman to translate it into French, and Dai Lao personally revised it. The pronunciation asked Dr. Wu Qiyu for guidance, practiced from time to time, and fortunately did not dishonor his life. After the four lectures, dozens of local oriental scholars invited a banquet at the art museum at their own expense to celebrate, and the grandeur was touching. Under Dai Lao's arrangement, the four lectures were printed into a small book les aspects ecommiques des travaux publics dans la chine imperiale, quatre conference (Académie française, 1964). The English manuscript was not mentioned until 1969 when Dai Lao gave me the preface to the "Sinology Scattered Strategies". Today Chinese draft was published, and Dai Lao returned to Daoshan early, please benefit no way. The master's degree is grand and memorable.
Yang Liansheng, Arington, Massachusetts, USA
December 28, 1982
Source: Yang Liansheng: "Exploring the Micro of National History", Lianjing Business Publishing Company, republic of China, first edition in March 1972; republished in February 1973.