Archives in Qing Dynasty are extremely rich in content, involving politics, economy, military affairs, culture, diplomacy, religion, education, justice, nationality, customs, astronomy, geography, meteorology, water conservancy, earthquake, disaster, foreign invasion of China, peasant war, court life, royal affairs, laws and regulations and so on.
The discovery of archives in qing dynasty.
In the 24th and 5th years of Guangxu reign in Qing Dynasty (1898, 1899), the cabinet treasury was in disrepair for a long time and needed to be repaired due to rainwater leakage. In order to facilitate the construction, some files stored in the library will be removed and temporarily stored in the Wenhua Hall in the north of the library, and the rest will still be exposed in the wall of the library. Prince Houchun's regency needs to consult the old archives of Dourgen's regency ceremony in the early Qing Dynasty, but it can't be consulted. So he thought there were too many useless documents in the library, so he let them burn them and was approved. At that time, Zhang Zhidong managed the affairs of the department as a college student, invited the books collected by the big library to the department, and set up the department library. Luo Zhenyu, the department counselor, participated in the handover. Luo Zhenyu "saw the red books piled up in the imperial court, as high as hills and mounds, all arranged in chronological order with neat endings", and occasionally read two of them, one of which was the memorial of the governor of grain transportation during Qianlong; The other is the memorial of A Gui, the minister of the Ministry of War during the Qianlong period, when he levied Jinchuan, and the two were connected for the second time. "Luo Zhenyu asked why the product was put in court. The important thing is to play with burning things from the beginning and not to destroy them. "It is strongly recommended that Zhang Zhidong stop burning, give the part to be burned to the headquarters, and store it in imperial academy Xue Nan Hall and the headquarters.
After the founding of the Republic of China, the Ministry of Education took over the archives kept by the Qing Department. 19 13 the Ministry of education set up a history museum preparatory office in imperial academy to take care of the archives of the Qing dynasty. 19 16 moved its office to Wumen, and moved the original files of imperial academy and our department to Wumen and Duanmen. However, these precious files have not been properly kept, only the relatively complete ones are selected and placed on the gate of the meridian gate, and the rest are packed in sacks and placed at the door of the end gate. 192 1 year, when the government was in financial difficulties, the Ministry of Education sold 8,000 sacks (about150,000 Jin) stored in the door opening of Duanmen to Tongmao Zengzhi Store in Xidan, Beijing as raw materials for papermaking. When Luo Zhenyu learned of this, he bought back these files at the price of three times the original price, that is, 12000 yuan, and these precious Qing archives have been preserved to this day. This is the famous "eight thousand sacks incident" in the history of archives.
Arrangement of archives in qing dynasty.
The archives in Qing Dynasty are numerous, varied, complex in content and diverse in form, which is not conducive to the preservation and utilization, and must be systematically sorted out.
First of all, the files are divided into fonds. All always refers to all the files formed by an independent organ, organization or famous person in various activities. The principle of the whole family is a principle of archival arrangement recognized by the archival circles in the world today. Filing must be based on the whole clan, and the files of the same clan shall not be scattered, and the files of different clans shall not be mixed together. Only in this way can we maintain the historical relationship between documents and facilitate management and utilization.
After distinguishing the fonds, it is necessary to classify the files, that is, divide each fonds file into different categories according to different standards, then divide it into different items under each category, and then divide it into sub-items under each item. Commonly used classification methods include: classification by document name (language type), classification by problem, classification by institution, classification by year, classification by year, etc.
After the archives in the whole clan are classified, they should be filed according to the different situations of the archives, that is, according to the characteristics of the archives, such as reasons, names, authors, sending and receiving organs, time and region, etc., to form a single file. Archives are the most basic storage, statistics and retrieval units of documents. Archives filing in Qing Dynasty can be divided into detailed filing and simple filing. Detailed filing requires sorting, arranging and numbering the files in the volume one by one, and filling in the "Directory of Files in the Volume" and "Reference Table at the End of the Volume". Simple filing does not need to be picked up one by one, just in order, and a reference table is attached.
After the above sorting, we should also compile search tools such as file directories and business cards, so as to have rules to follow and a purpose to check.
Archives collection in Qing dynasty.
China No.1 Historical Archives contains more than 9 million files of the Qing Dynasty. Including the nine years before the Qing Dynasty entered the customs (1607), the first year of Shunzhi (1644) and the third year of Xuantong after entering the customs (19 1 1), and Bird, who lived in the Forbidden City and Tianjin after the last emperor Puyi abdicated. In addition to Chinese files, there are files in Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan and other minority languages, as well as files in English, Japanese, Russian, Latin and other foreign languages.
The archives of the Qing Dynasty preserved in the First Historical Archives of China involve almost all aspects of history of qing dynasty: internal affairs, including official positions, official system, police protection, etiquette, courts, tombs, the Reform Movement of 1898, and preparations for constitutionalism; Military aspects, including battalion system, promotion and salary of Wu Zhi officials, military training, military engineering, etc. In diplomacy, it includes border contracting, opening trade ports, paying and hiring contacts. Suppressing people's resistance includes suppressing anti-Qing struggles and secret associations such as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Nian Army, the Boxer Rebellion and the Revolution of 1911. Ethnic affairs include the situation of more than 30 ethnic groups including Yao, Li, Mongolian, Hui, Tibetan, Uygur, Dai, Gaoshan and Kazak from the Qing Dynasty to the end of Xuan Tong. Finance, including taxation, salt affairs, donation, warehousing, warehousing, water transportation, funds, money and finance; In the aspect of culture and education, it includes the archives of imperial examinations, imperial academy, calligraphy museums, schools and literary prisons held in the late Qing Dynasty, and a small number of opera archives; Industrial transportation, including post stations and stations, the construction of railways in the late Qing Dynasty, and the opening of post and telecommunications services; Judicial aspects, including land and housing disputes, money and debt disputes, theft and fraud cases, family and marriage disputes, corruption and bribery and other criminal and civil cases; Astronomical geography includes compiling and publishing almanac, recording the changes of the sun, moon and stars, eclipses and earthquakes.
The Palace Museum in Shuangxi, a suburb of Taipei, Taiwan Province Province, is another centralized preservation center of Qing archives. The hospital has 204 boxes of Qing dynasty files. Among them, there are 3 court files 1 piece, 47 Ministry of War files, 6 Qing history files 1 piece, 50 daily registrations, 9 biographies, 2 imperial edicts, books1piece, old Manchuria files1piece and 2 miscellaneous files, totaling more than 400,000 pieces. The contents of the palace are mainly the memorial of Zhu Pi in Manchu and Chinese and its attachments; Military archives are mainly divided into two categories: monthly folding packages and archives books; The archives of the National History Museum include the archives of the National History Museum in the Qing Dynasty and the archives of the National History Museum in the early years of the Republic of China, mainly including various manuscripts and related materials of Ji, Zhi, Biao and Chuan.
Sichuan Provincial Archives has more than 0.5 million volumes of Qing Dynasty archives1/kloc-0, including Baxian, Chongqing, East Sichuan, Jianchang and other places. Among them, the Eight Immortals Archives is the earliest and largest existing local government archives in Qing Dynasty in China. From the 22nd year of Qianlong (1757) to the 3rd year of Xuantong (191), it has been1.3.
There are more than 200,000 volumes of Qing Dynasty archives in Liaoning Province. The documents of all ages, from Destiny and Tiancong (16 16~ 1635) to Guangxu and Xuan Tong (1875-1911), have been preserved. Part of it is the archives of the Fengtian Negotiation Headquarters, General Shengjing and some counties preserved by the National Fengtian Library during the Puppet Manchukuo Period.
In addition, there are 6,527 volumes of files from Shunzhi to Xuan Tong in Confucius House in Qufu, Shandong Province. There are a large number of Tibetan archives in Qing Dynasty in Xizang Autonomous Region Archives. Beijing, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and other local archives all have different numbers of Qing archives.
It is worth mentioning that there are still many precious Qing archives scattered abroad and around the world. This part of the archives mainly exists in the following institutions: British Public Archives, British Museum, University of London; National Archives, Library of Congress, Harvard University, Stanford University, Oriental Library; The former Soviet Academy of Sciences and some archives and libraries in France, the Netherlands and other countries.
Archives publishing in Qing dynasty.
Compiling and publishing historical archives with blue and white Yunlong vase is an important way to open up the utilization of archives in Qing Dynasty. Archival compilation in Qing dynasty can compile archival historical materials into books and publish them from different angles and different needs. It has the advantages of strong theme, concentrated content and convenient use. , so that users can read the required archival historical materials without going to the archives, which is conducive to the long-term and extensive circulation of archives. The compilation of archival documents is mostly collated, processed and punctuated by editors, and some have annotations, notes, prefaces, illustrations, chronologies, examples and so on. It has certain guidance and reference function for readers. Many collections of archival documents have been published one after another. For example, the preparation for Westernization, Imperialism and China Customs, San Francisco Historical Materials of Qing Dynasty, Diplomatic Historical Materials of Qing Dynasty, Sino-French War, Revolution of 1911, Heaven and Earth Society, Historical Materials of the Boxer Rebellion, Notes of Kangxi Mansion, Historical Materials of the Reform Movement of 1898, etc.
Historical Archives (Quarterly), published since 198 1, is an intellectual and academic publication that mainly publishes archives of Ming and Qing dynasties. It mainly publishes the archives of the First Historical Archives, with columns such as archives history, archives introduction, archives introduction and archives book evaluation.
The Taiwan Province Provincial Palace Museum has published the Archives of the Forbidden City (Quarterly) since 1969, and regularly published historical archives of the Qing Dynasty.
Historical value of archives in qing dynasty.
These archives of the Qing Dynasty, which have been preserved so far, are the true records of the history of more than 300 years from the beginning of the 7th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the largest and most concentrated ancient archives in China, and the first-hand materials for studying history of qing dynasty. Zhang Xuecheng, a scholar in Qing Dynasty, once spoke highly of the historical value of archives. Archives are the most authentic and reliable first-hand historical materials, which can "make up for the lack of history, the mistakes in reference to history, the details of history and the lack of continuity of history"
China has a fine tradition of compiling history and compiling local records by using archives since ancient times, and the place where archives are usually stored is the place for compiling history and compiling local records. In December of the 30th year of Qianlong reign, there were nearly 20 kinds of files cited in Notes on Residence (Materia Medica). Gong Zizhen, a scholar in Qing Dynasty, compiled Mongolian Atlas by using archives. Every time Ruan Kuisheng meets the night shift, he "pushes three wax branches and never tires of browsing (files) at night", and thus writes a book "Tea Guests Talk".
As a kind of historical data, archives also have their own limitations, that is, incompleteness. As far as reflecting a complex historical process is concerned, archives can reflect a concrete process in a concrete, detailed and vivid way. However, for the whole process, the historical facts reflected are either lack of beginning, no result, or lack of a process or link, which is often due to years, natural disasters and natural destruction, unlike systematic historical works that can systematically reflect the background and panorama of historical events. In addition, on the whole, archives are original historical records and are authentic. But not every file is credible, or fake, or genuine, but due to various complicated factors, its records have been seriously inaccurate. "It is better to have files than no files", so sometimes it is necessary to use books and other documents to supplement the shortage of files.