A Visit to the Ming-Ch’ing Archive in Peking

A VISIT TO THE MING-CH'ING ARCHIVE IN PEKING -9k- [ The following is a summary of an article titled "Tsou fang Pei-ching ku-kung King-Ch'ing tang-an-pu" £ t i * t by Cheng Pei-kai, a graduate student in Chinese history at Yale who visited the People's Republic during the summer of 19?8. The article appeared in the Hong Kong magazine Tou sou #29 (September 1978), pp.11-19- It is based on Cheng's interview with two members of the King-Ch'ing Archive's staffs Li P'eng-nien , Deputy Director and ChU T e - y 1 i a n $ ® ^ Deputy Chief of the Preservation and Utilization Department * # 4'J ® £8- g i] . In this summary I have followed the organization of the original article as closely as possible. — James Cole ] The full name of the Ming-Ch’ing Archive thereafter MCA] is Ku-kung po-wu-yiian King-Ch'ing tang-an-pu * * 4 # ffc « if ^ . The MCA was established in 1950 as part of the Palace Museum. In 1955 its affiliation was transferred to the National Archives Bureau @ i ^ yg , and in 1959 to the newly established Central Archives Office . Archival work was suspended during the Cultural Revolution. In 1970, as the result of reorganization of the Central Archives Office, the MCA once more became part of the Palace Museum. This affiliation has continued to the present [summer 1978]. The MCA has also been known as the Number One Historical Archive to distinguish it from the Number Two Historical Archive in Nanking, which contains warlord- and Nationalist govern­ ment- period documents. Most of the materials in the MCA pertain to the central govern­ ment. A small number of local archival materials are also included. But in general local archival materials are controlled by provincial* and county- level organizations. [More on this below.1 Chronological coverage of the Ch'ing documents in the MCA is 1607 - 194-0. Pre-1644 materials concern the Manchus before their invasion. Post-1911 materials concern Pu-yi as puppet emperor of Manchukuo. The Ch'ing documents were produced by over seventy governmental institutions, including the Chun chi ch'u Nei ko , Tsung jen fu , Nei wu fu m j s , the Six Boards • and the new ministries established during the postBoxer reforms, "many military archives," and some Banner archives. As for local archives in the MCA, there are those of the Amur River generals r f t £ * * * > < * $ and some local commanders' 4*rf1 archives. Also included are the papers of some individual Ch'ing governors and governors general, such as Tuan-fang 11861-1911, modernizer and ally of Chang Chih-tung] and Chao Erh-sun [governor-general of Manchuria as of 1910]. Most of the documents in the MCA are in Chinese, with Manchu the next most frequent language. There are also documents in Tibetan, Mongol, and Uighur, plus diplomatic documents in other languages. The MCA includes not only communications t o , and from the emperor (memorials, edicts, etc.) but also communications between government bureaus. The total number of documents held by the MCA is between 8 and 9 million, occupying over 8,000 square meters of storage space. This does not include the approximately 400,000 archival documents transferred to Taiwan Hand presently in the National Palace Museum there 1. It must be emphasized that the MCA, despite its enormous size, is not complete, reflecting damage suffered during the course of Chinese history since the fall of the Ming. Concerning the MCA's state of cataloguing, as of 1950 nothing had been done. Since 1950 the large majority of documents has undergone "preliminary arrangement" by students -95- -96- (not professional archivists) around 1958. This consists of classification by institution and year. An additional fraction has not yet been touched, and another fraction has been "scientifically arranged" ft Ci.e., professionally catalogued]. Even the materials at the "preliminary arrangement" stage are usable by researchers, albeit with considerable inconvenience and lack of efficiency. The work of "scientific arrangement” is proceeding, but at a slow pace. Archival manpower is insufficient L a point made repeatedly]. Publishing archival documents for scholarly use is one of the MCA's functions. Publications are of three types. The first is materials assembled solely by the staff of the MCA's Compilation Department . i| j p [At least two volumes of this type have already appeared: w * * * * * * * (Peking, Chung-hua shu-chii, 19?5» 222 pp.) and ^ ^ (Peking, Chung-hua shu-chii, 1976, 293 PP-)- The documents in both volumes are typeset in non-simplified characters , divided into paragraphs, and punctuated.1 ] The second type of publication is that of MCA documents compiled and published independently by outsiders Li-e-, not MCA staff]. An example is the collection of documents published in the Journal of Peking Normal University by , formerly called db . A more extensive collection Of these documents was subsequently published by Chung-hua shu-chu. [ No further publication details given.] The third type of publication consists of documents compiled jointly by the MCA staff and outsiders. This type is more usual than sole compilation by outsiders. Examples include collections of materials on the Taipings, Boxers, and 1898 Reform Movement. All three types of publication are fine so long as the MCA's permission has been obtained. -97Permission to use materials involving foreign relations or border affairs is relatively difficult to get, since these documents, although historical in nature, may still involve state secrets. The MCA's Preservation and Utilization Department has acquired documents from outside sources, such as used book stores, other organizations, and individual collectors. But such acquisitions are not very numerous, partially because of manpower limitations and partially because potential donors are reluctant to part with their holdings even when offered financial compensation or repro­ ductions of the documents in question. Apart from materials already in the MCA and in local archives, there is a goodly amount of Ming-Ch'ing archival material still held by individuals or by other organizations. As for local archival materials, they are in principle not collected by the MCA. Collection and preservation of local documents is in principle the responsibility of the provincial and local archives. But the MCA does collect valuable local materials if they are unclaimed by another archive. In addition to the provincial-level archives, each county (hsien) has an archive, holding historical as well as contemporary documents. There are trained archivists even at the county level capable of dealing with the historical materials in their charge. The major training center for archivists prior to the Cultural Revolution was People's University A % ^ ^ • At that time People's University had three distinct archivist training programs! 1) the basic fouryear course, 2) a one-year special training course for archivists selected by their units, to which they returned after the one year, and 3 ) a two-year advanced research program. In addition to these People’s University programs, there v/ere ad hoc training programs in various provinces. In the last year or two, the department of historical archives at Feople’s University has been revived. The expectation is that its three training programs would be reestablished, as would the smaller training programs elsewhere The MCA recognizes that its facilities are below international standards. At present [summer 19781 scholars using the MCA must copy documents by hand. Their notes are then checked before being allowed out. The backwardness and inefficiency of this system, compared to photographic or xerographic reproduction, is fully recognized by the MCA staff. Researchers have made known their complaints concerning the amount of time which they must spend handcopying documents. This problem will be solved eventually. But it is a question of nationwide priorities. The number of Ming documents in the MCA is very small, only several thousand out of the 8 or 9 million. These surviving Ming documents were originally part of those collected by the Gh'ing during the compilation of the Ming shih They are mainly from the Ming Board of W a r ^ ^ f .date from the late Ming’s T'ien-ch'i and Ch’ung-chen reign periods [1621-162? and 1628- 1644respectively], and deal with peasant uprisings. These documents have been used by Prof. Cheng T'ien-t'ing [of Nankai University, one of the senior Ch'ing scholars] in his book Ming-mo nung-min ch'i-i shih-liao * * ! l * i t B * * * t [Peking, 1954, 529 PP-l- Due primarily to destruction during the collapse of the Ming and to the Ch’ing literary inquisitions, what survives of the original Ming archives is miniscule, in contrast to the embarras de richesse for the Ch'ing. Kor is what survives from the Ming a representative sample of the original. Some more Ming materials may exist, however, in provincial -99 archives. Exchange of materials among the various archives Cpresumably i t la inter-library loan! is lacking. But its desirability is acknowledged. Before the Cultural Revolution there was a plan to produce a national union catalogue of archives 4^ 0 ^ 8 . Whether or not to revive this plan has not yet been decided. But a pre-Cultural Revolution plan for a national union catalogue of rare books has been revived and is presently underway. Also underway is a union catalogue of books in Manchu£ ® 0 , which has uncovered many previously unknown works. Most of the Ch'ing archival materials on Taiwan are not duplicated by the MCA’s holdings. For example, the MCA's collection of Foreign Ministry materials contains the working papers and diplomatic correspondence prior to a given treaty, but not the final treaty itself. The MCA archive is located in a reenforced concrete building in the northwest part of the former palace compound. It is used daily by over twenty researchers, for a total of 2500 man-days during the first half of 1978. The reading room has usually been full. Space for researchers has been insufficient, but a new reading room larger than a basketball court is under construction Cas of summer 19781. Following Cheng's interview, he was taken on a half-hour tour of the MCA's stacks, during which he found that the best-catalogued materials, including classification by subject, were those dealing with Anglo-Chinese foreign relations. At the other extreme, piles of documents were seen, classified only by date, not yet by subject or even by institution. Needless to say, the vastness of the collection was impressive, as was the magnitude of the task still facing the dedicated archivists of the Cataloguing Department -100As for foreign scholars using the MCA, there were some [unnamed] before the Cultural Revolution. Since the Cultural Revolution, there have as yet been no Americans. But Marianne Bastid has worked there recently on Sheng Hsiian-huai. Foreign scholars are welcome to use the MCA so long as they receive permission in advance. A third volume of this type has also been published: (Peking, Chung-hua shu-chu, 19?8, 159 pp.) , edited by the Ku-kung po-wu-yilan Ming-Ch'ing tang-an-pu. Similar in format to the two volumes cited in the text, this volume consists of sixty-five documents on "the Ch'ing government's financial situation at the time of the Taiping Revolution," eighty documents on Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi's seizure of power in 1861, twelve documents on the 1902 uprising by secret society leader Hung Ch'uan-fu in Kwangtung, and three documents on tax policy during the Shun-chih reign (1644-1661). Simplified characters are used in this volume. ...