Late Qing officialdom in a hundred states

Author: Yu Xiaohong (Compiler)
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2006-05-01
Features: Dian Shi Zhai Huabao (Point Stone Studio Illustrated News) is one of the earliest news illustrated magazines in China. It was first published on May 8, 1884 (the 10th year of the Guangxu reign). It was a ten-day periodical, lithographed. The magazine was published by the British-owned Dian Shi Zhai Lithography Company and distributed alongside Shanghai Daily as a supplement, as well as sold separately. Wu Youru was responsible for the compilation and illustration, with contributions from other artists as well. According to Dictionary of Modern Chinese History (Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House, 1982), Dian Shi Zhai Huabao ceased publication in 1894 (the 20th year of the Guangxu reign), lasting a total of ten years. However, Chen Pingyuan's Western Learning in the Late Qing: Perspectives of the Late Qing People states that the magazine ended in August 1898. Thus, the magazine was published for fifteen years. Chen Pingyuan's conclusion is more accurate. While reviewing the content of the magazine, I found a news piece titled Anecdotes of the Vice Premier about Li Hongzhang's visit to the United States. Research shows that Li Hongzhang visited the U.S. in August 1896. The late Qing period was an era of great turmoil and transformation. After a brief revival during the Tongzhi Restoration, the Qing government quickly fell into the position of being bullied and partitioned by imperialist powers. After the storm of peasant uprisings, the Qing court was no longer capable of regaining its former dominance and was on the verge of decline. An ancient empire finally had to lower its torn curtain. From 1884 to 1898, Dian Shi Zhai Huabao recorded political, military, economic, and social events both domestically and internationally through the combination of news and illustrations, with a focus on domestic news. Domestic news primarily centered on social affairs. The state bureaucracy's dynamics were part of the social news. Objectively speaking, the magazine's emphasis was on the illustrations rather than the news. The news was written in appendices, often vague and lacking the five essential elements of modern journalism, with insufficient on-the-spot reporting and firsthand details. This was a weakness of the magazine. In July 2001, amidst scorching summer heat, I accompanied Chen Pingyuan, a professor from the Department of Chinese at Peking University, and his wife Xiaoxiong, also a scholar, on a trip to the Yi Mountain. We visited the tombs of Qian Qianyi and Liu Rushi, paid respects at the tomb of Weng Tonghe, enjoyed lotus flowers in Zeng Pu's former garden, and sampled tea at Baoyan Ecological Park. Both Chen and Xiaoxiong were distinguished scholars who usually traveled abroad for lectures and dedicated themselves to writing. That time, they had (rare two and a half days off) to attend a seminar on Qian Liu Hongdou Mountain Villa in Changshu. During our time in the garden, we chatted about various topics, took photos by the lake where Jiang Shang once fished, and later traveled to Wujiang to meet an old friend, Jing Ge, and enjoyed a leisurely stroll in the Tuisi Garden in Tongli. After returning to Beijing, Chen and Xiaoxiong sent me copies of their works, including The Charm of the Late Qing, Returning to the Scene—Tracing Late Qing Figures, Characters of the Past, and Reading Japan. These greatly inspired the writing of this book. They were rigorous and meticulous in their scholarship, sincere and helpful to younger scholars, and polite and humble in their interactions, from which I benefited greatly. In the summer of 2002, after completing the historical essay Evening Songs of Yi Mountain, I accepted the task of writing this book. It was an extremely challenging job. Each news piece in Dian Shi Zhai Huabao was written in classical Chinese, with some obscure variant characters that required first dividing the sentences, then organizing and verifying place names, personages, official titles, and descriptions of items. It was painstaking work. Sometimes, researching a single place name could take one or two hours. The summer of 2003 was a ninety-day period of sweat and effort. Finally, I completed the task, submitted the disk, and considered it as sending a carefully polished brick to the thick historical walls of the late Qing era.