Journal of the History of the Mind

Author: Meng Sen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: After the Qing Dynasty, there were no historical records about the Qing era. Those who discussed stories often enjoyed recounting Qing-era facts. Moreover, due to the Qing government's strict censorship, during the reign of Emperor Qianlong, they used the Four Treasuries Project as a pretext to threaten, burn, and alter books, leading to the calamity of burning books and burying scholars. After the records of prohibition, their reactionary forces gave rise to countless unfounded and defamatory tales. Regarding the Qing Dynasty, we originally had no strong love or hatred for it. However, as the duty of those who transmit doubts and truths, we did not want to follow the crowd and often corrected misunderstandings when discussing Qing-era history. Occasionally, we would mention one incident, without hesitation to list old accounts and elaborate on its origins, not daring to boast of breadth or greed for quantity in hopes of reaching a moderate truth. Accumulating several such items, we published them successively in response to the requests of various newspapers. After publishing, we often added corrections based on our observations.