Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Daxia, who worked in the Ministry of War, was considered to have burned all the information of Zheng He privately, and thus became synonymous with conservatives, which was denounced for a hundred years. Recently, however, Professor Pan Qun, an expert in Ming history and Nanjing University, found that Liu Daxia was most likely wronged.
There is no "fire incident" in official history.
Pan Lao's question came into being when he was studying Ming history. "Liu Daxia was an important minister in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Assisting the four emperors of Britain, Xian, Xiao and Wu, he was a venerable elder in the four dynasties. His people dare to act boldly and have made many achievements in court reform and water control of the Yellow River. " Pan Lao said: "There is a biography of Liu Daxia in the Ming Dynasty, and the length is not small, which shows his position in the Ming Dynasty." However, Pan Lao found that there was no record of Liu Daxia burning Zheng He's materials privately in the whole biography. I also consulted the biographies of Liu Daxia in the Ming Dynasty, but none of them were recorded.
It's not just these that puzzled Pan Lao: the laws of the Ming Dynasty were extremely harsh on officials. According to the provisions of the Daming Law, Ming officials who lost documents and materials "related to military aircraft money and food" not only had to stop paying salaries, but also suffered severe punishment. Even if it was accidentally lost, what's more, it was deliberately burned? All this makes Liu Daxia look more and more aggrieved.
A word has caused trouble and has been wronged for more than 400 years.
So, where did Liu Daxia's statement that he burned Zheng He's materials privately come from? Pan Lao found the earliest source of sentences-objectified speech. A note written by Gu Qiyuan, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty (a native of Nanjing in the 26th year of Wanli), specializes in studying historical events and anecdotes.
But soon he discovered two other important works of Ming Dynasty, whose records were quite different from those in Ke Rong Ci.
Zhouzi Road is the work of Yan Congjian, a native of Jiaxing and an official in Beijing. According to the book, during Tang Xianzong's reign, a eunuch suggested that the emperor should follow the story of becoming a ancestor of the Ming Dynasty and go to the Western Ocean again. So the emperor sent a letter to the Ministry of War, asking for Zheng He's nautical charts and other information. At that time, the driver Liu Daxia hid these materials in advance, and Xiang Zhong, a minister of the Ministry of War, ordered officials to search in the warehouse, but they could not find them. So I gave up my trip to the west. Weekly Consultation in Special Fields was written not only before Hakka Words, but also according to the archives of the internal library. Similar content is also recorded in the notebook "Long Water Day Copy" written by Lu Shusheng, a scholar and right assistant minister of the official department in the twentieth year of Jiajing. Moreover, the date of publication of this note is not after Hakka.
Pan Lao also found that the Records, which recorded the words and deeds of the Ming emperor, also recorded that Liu Daxia had hidden some foreign materials in order to realize the policy of "closing the door to the outside world" when he was an assistant minister of the Ministry of War. So he speculated that Liu Daxia was more likely to hide Zheng He's information than burn it.
So where did the statement that "Liu Daxia burned Zheng He's materials privately" come from in "Extra Words of Guests"? According to the Weekly Special Zone Daily, Xiang Zhong, the minister of the Ministry of War, was very angry after he didn't find the information about Zheng He. He asked the clerk in charge of archives: How can the archives in the library be lost? Liu Daxia, who was on the side, said calmly: "Sanbao went to the Western Ocean, spent hundreds of thousands of money and food, and killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians. Returning home with treasure is not good for the country. This is a special malpractice, and ministers should also protest. Although there are old cases, they must be treated. "
"It is very likely that Liu Daxia's angry words' Although the old case exists, it should be like this' were misrepresented as Liu Daxia's private burning of information." Pan Lao said.
Gan Long is the culprit?
If Liu Daxia didn't burn the materials but just hid them, where would they go in the next few hundred years? This problem has plagued Pan Lao so far. However, when he looked up the History of Ming Dynasty, he still found the clues that Zheng He's materials were handed down to later generations. The Manuscript of Ming History of Nantu Ancient Books Department is the earliest written biography of Ming history. There are some descriptions of Zheng He's fleet in the Biography of Zheng He in this manuscript, which are not found in the known materials of Ming Dynasty, and have also been deleted in the written records of Ming History. Do these descriptions come from the mysterious Zheng He data?
If the officials who keep Zheng He's data keep Zheng He's data in the warehouse like their predecessor Liu Daxia, and they will never find them among the people, will these data be hidden in the First Historical Archives together with other ouchi files? The reporter learned that at present, there are more than 3,620 pieces of archives of ming dynasty preserved in the First Archives alone, almost all of which are files of the Apocalypse and Chongzhen Dynasties in the late Ming Dynasty, and there are no files in the early and middle Ming Dynasty. Mr. Wei Qingyuan, a famous scholar, explained: "archives of ming dynasty has not been preserved much, because of the Ming and Qing wars, and because after the compilation of the History of the Ming Dynasty during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, according to the practice at that time, the archival historical materials on which it was based were often discarded or even burned."
Professor Pan Qun analyzed that in this way, everything would be solved-Liu Daxia was wronged for more than 400 years because of an angry remark, perhaps Gan Long destroyed Zheng He's navigation materials!