It is a habit of our country for later generations to revise the history of the former dynasty, which also represents the replacement of a dynasty. In the early years of the Republic of China, the Beiyang government always compiled the history of the Qing Dynasty from the ancient tradition. Yuan Shikai, then president, was also very concerned about the compilation of Qing history. He established the Museum of Qing History and recruited famous scholars to participate in its compilation. Zhao Erxun was the editor-in-chief. He was a scholar during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, and was awarded editing by the Hanlin Academy. Successive provincial judges, governors, ministers of the Ministry of Housing, General Shengjing, Governor of Huguang and Governor of Sichuan. Academic qualifications and resumes are dazzling, and academic literacy is extremely high. Because the editors are all celebrities in the late Qing Dynasty, the whole draft of Qing History still follows the style of twenty-four histories, which is composed of table, record, biography and biography. It is completely in classical Chinese format, which is very different from later historical works.
The compilation of the whole history of the Qing Dynasty involved more than 300 people before and after, with a total of 536 volumes. This is a real masterpiece, informative and can represent most of the official history of the Qing Dynasty. However, due to the twists and turns of compilation and the particularly hasty time, it is impossible to proofread the manuscript carefully. Many of them are the opinions of one family and have not been carefully researched. Moreover, many people involved in compilation are old people of the Qing Dynasty, which is unfair from a subjective point of view, and the manuscript is only a draft, not a complete history of qing dynasty.
When the Draft of the History of Qing Dynasty was compiled, there were constant wars in China, and various warlords fought endlessly. Yuan Shikai failed to claim the title of emperor, his successors were not interested in compiling the history of Qing Dynasty, and the Qing History Museum also lost its financial resources. Fortunately, the editors turned to all directions for help. Northeast king? What about Zhang? Ordinary dog meat? Zhang Zongchang? General scholar? Wu didn't insist on writing the draft of Qing history until he had money, but he didn't have time to revise it and had to print it directly. There are many shortcomings, but it is also a mechanism that can be achieved at that time, which provides a rare reference for future generations to study Qing history.