Speaking of the most famous historical works, there are probably people who mention "5th year of Wanli ". Before Huang Renyu, we didn't know that history could be written like this, and it seemed that it could only be in the ivory tower without anyone's interest; but after Huang Renyu, not only did Ming history enter the public reading vision, but the entire history has caused one wave of attention after another within the public. At the same time, various controversies surrounding Huang Renyu's historical view and academic methods also followed.
Today is the anniversary of the death of this famous historian. 18 years ago today, on January 8, 2000, Huang Renyu died of a sudden heart attack. On this day, let’s talk to you about Huang Renyu, who is not only a successful and famous Huang Renyu, but also a lot of controversy left behind. At the end of the article, we also specially prepared "eastern eggs" and asked several academic teachers to talk about their views and thoughts on Huang Renyu and the 15th Year of Wanli. How do you view this popular and popular historical work? Have you also fallen in love with history through Mr. Huang Renyu? You are welcome to leave a message to share your views with us.
Written by: Zongcheng
Huang Renyu lives himself as a phenomenon, or a legend. He was originally a simple scholar and lived in the ivory tower, but after he was over 60 years old, he was dismissed by the State University of Newports, a school road sounded the alarm. However, life was very ups and downs, what Newputz School did not expect was that the next year, Huang Renyu published a new book titled "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli", which became expensive in Luoyang as soon as it was published. From then on, every book of his book became a best-selling book. Some people admired him and even planned to organize the "Huang Xue Research Association" and applied to establish the academic series of "Huang Xue Research".
There are many coincidences and interesting things in his life, and these coincidences even run through life and death. Huang Renyu passed away on January 8, 2000. Rumors were made that he went to see a movie that day and had a heart attack. On the way to the cinema, Huang Renyu smiled and said to his wife Geer: "The elderly have so many illnesses, it is best to abandon their bodies and leave the world." He did not want his words to come true.
Among the people, Huang Renyu is a famous historical master, but in the historical community, Huang Renyu is more like a "left-minded". The mainstream Ming history experts in China do not adopt his views very much. Some people even specifically analyze Huang Renyu's works and criticize his academic attitude. During his lifetime, Huang Renyu was full of praise and slander. Now, when we look back at this historian, stripping away his curse and chasing, and looking at his works and controversy rationally, it may be more inspiring to future generations.
big history
the outdated modernity
Huang Renyu himself is a very interesting person. He is called a "strange hero" scholar by the historical master Yu Yingshi. During his lifetime, he studied, participated in the army, worked as a teacher, and studied. The book "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" made him known as the best writer of history.
The reason why he aspires to become a historian is related to his father's experience. His father came from a landlord family in Hunan with a family that was in trouble. He once joined the "Tongmenghui" and joined the revolution. However, more than ten years of unrest made his father hate the revolution and eventually survived the cracks of the times. Huang Renyu once said: "He (father) made me realize that I am a survivor, not a martyr. Such a background allows me to see clearly what can be done and what cannot be done in the situation. I don't need to fight against what has happened long ago."
Huang Renyu, (June 25, 1918, January 8, 2000), was born in Changsha, Hunan in 1918. He is a Chinese American. He was admitted to the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Nankai University in 1936. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Huang Renyu dropped out of school and joined the army. Later, he went to the United States to study and obtained a doctorate in history from the University of Michigan (studying under Yu Yingshi). He is known to the world as a historian, expert in Chinese history and Ming history, and an advocate of the great historical view. He has written best-selling works such as "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" and "The Great History of China".
After studying, Huang Renyu focused on the history of the Ming Dynasty.As early as 1974, he wrote "Finance and Taxation in China in the 16th Century". In that book, Huang Renyu pointed out: Finance in the Ming Dynasty focused on form, but there was a lack of legal and economic connection between the bureaucratic system and the people, so an effective tax system could not be established. The views of this book influenced the writing of "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli". Without this book, there would be no "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli".
In addition to "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli", Huang Renyu's more popular books include "The Great History of China", " Capitalism and the 21st Century ", "Reading Chiang Kai-shek's Diary from the Perspective of Great History", "The Green Mountains of the Yellow River: Huang Renyu's Memoirs", etc. Among these works, "big history" is a word that has been repeatedly mentioned. Huang Renyu believes that only by a big perspective can we see big history. The entire history of China is not isolated, but has its internal laws and connections. In general, "big history" requires scholars to grasp history from a macro perspective, not stick to the details, and tell the changes and evolution of specific dynasties in the picture of world history.
As a scholar, Huang Renyu advocates a high degree of rational calculation spirit. In terms of academic research methods, he advocated using induction to highly compress existing historical materials and conduct comparative analysis based on comparison. This is particularly obvious in "The Great History of China". To a certain extent, the ideas of "The Great History of China" and "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" are consistent. Huang Renyu looks at the rise and fall of farming society and the rise and fall of China's dynasties from a critical perspective. This is actually a typical idea for Westerners to study Chinese history. In their opinion, different social forms and economic systems are indeed different from backward and advanced. The latter is often called "modern" or "modernity", while the former represents China's farming society and feudal political system. "The Great History of China" talks about "the conflict between the modern economic system and the farming society."
"Changsha White Jasmine"
Author: [US] Huang Renyu
Translator: Song Biyun
Version: Jiuzhou Publishing House August 2009
In addition to historical works, Huang Renyu also has a hobby for writing novels. He once published novels under the pen name "Li Wei'ang". " Bian Jing Remnant Dream " and "Changsha White Jasmine" are his novels. If he didn't do academic research, Huang Renyu would probably become a diligent novelist, but his novels were not as good as history books. He had too many preaching parts, and his language still had a clear "historical accent". He also lacked delicateness in controlling characters. He did not look like he was writing novels, but rather like a historical material tour guide.
In terms of writing, Huang Renyu imitated the way of Ming and Qing dynasties and popular novels in the Republic of China, wearing a tough shell of rationality, but there was a bit of the gentleness of a mandarin duck butterfly in his bones. He considers himself a romantic person. You can chase a girl without hesitation, or you can join the army bravely when the struggle breaks out. He likes to show off and enjoys the feeling of a warrior. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, as a member of the General Command, he would occasionally venture into the uninhabited area, even if it was not much helpful to the war. When the Chinese army lost two light tanks near the pass, he also risked observing the tanks burned by the Japanese army. "Touch the hole that was penetrated by the 47 anti-tank gun with your finger."
1587
From "meaningless" to "big turning point"
Huang Renyu still can't avoid the "Fifteenth Year of Wanli" that has a huge impact. Forty years have passed, and this book is still popular. Analyzing this phenomenon, it cannot be dispelled by a sentence "newly written style". In 1587, the surface was calm, but something far-reaching happened. This is the fifteenth year of Wanli's ascendance to the throne, the year when Shen Shixing served as the prime minister of the cabinet, and the year when the Qing official Hai Rui and military general Qi Jiguang died. Huang Renyu believes that this is the turning point of the Ming Dynasty. After 1587, the Ming Dynasty has gone to a dead end.
"The Fifteenth Year of Wanli"
Author: [US] Huang Renyu
Version: Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore May 1997
Compared with past works that study the Ming Dynasty, "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" avoids the cumbersome historical materials, but uses the life fragments of several characters to draw out the author's views.In the book, Wanli was dissatisfied with the fact that everything was restricted by red tape; Shen Shixing was doing boring and boring work every day; Qi Jiguang was heading towards the end of his life; Li Zhi was facing the strangle of a dynasty. In 1587, the civil servant class was entangled in trivial matters, while the ruling institutions carefully maintained a rigid Taoist tradition. Huang Renyu believes that the Ming Dynasty lost the key to national management: technology. At the same time, this regime overemphasized morality and despised the legal system in the middle and late periods.
This can be seen from the fate of Shen Shixing (Editor's Note: a famous minister of the Ming Dynasty). This princess advocates harmony and little things, believes in Confucian classics, and emphasizes the use of virtue to convince people and measure people with virtue. The main problem he faced was how to reconcile the debates between officials at all levels. Over time, he became a mediator, but he was unable to improve the bureaucratic ability to handle affairs like Zhang Juzheng .
However, Shen Shixing wanted to balance the relationship between the civil service group and the emperor, but his hard work in harmony and little work did not win the understanding of his colleagues. In the end, the second auxiliary Xu Guo disclosed a correspondence with Emperor Wanli, and Shen Shixing completely lost the trust of the civil servant group, so he had to resign as the chief supervisor.
emphasizes morality over legal system and technology. In the end, he left sadly because of false moral problems. Shen Shixing was driven out by the system he maintained. In this system, the highest standard for judging an official is whether the morality is complete, not whether the technology is advanced or the procedures are reasonable. The standard of mediation is not whether anyone's argument is more reasonable, but whether the argument's morality is noble. In order to maintain their reputation, officials dare not appoint technical talents on the one hand, and on the other hand, they flatter famous people and gain a good reputation for themselves.
"The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" English version
version: Yale University Press, in September 1982,
and Shen Shixing were Hairui and Zhang Juzheng. Hai Rui is not just a moral model, he has good service ability and execution ability. In charge of the local government, he suppressed the powerful, cleared the rivers, and implemented the one-whip method, and became a central official in the Ming Dynasty as a juren. Hai Rui burned great passion deep in his heart. He worked hard for the peaceful and prosperous times in his heart. He wanted to use unrealistic idealism to oppose everything he disliked in real life. But the tragedy of Hai Rui is that people only regard him as a moral symbol, but do not value his technical ability. This is still the case until he died. In the fifteenth year of Wanli, Hai Rui died. "All the officials in the north mourn him, and even the emperor personally wrote a memorial to mourn him." As Liu Heping, the author of "The Ming Dynasty 1566", said: "What they mourn is not the death of a person, but the death of a spiritual symbol."
Zhang Juzheng has more political skills than Hai Rui. He opposed the use of morality instead of technology. He has been in charge for ten years and valued technical talents, but he has endured tremendous pressure for this and was tragically searched after his death.
interests were cut off, and the civil servant group decided to make a fuss about Zhang Juzheng's personal morality. Zhang Juzheng tried to improve the technology of the bureaucratic group by himself and use a secular administrative efficiency to solve the problems of the Ming Dynasty, but ignored the weight of morality in the hearts of conservative bureaucrats, so he was besieged by groups.
His failure is inevitable, because he is using his own strength to promote his reform. He uses huge power, but in terms of system, Zhang Juzheng lacks changes, which makes it difficult to preserve the fruits of his reform. Moreover, Zhang Juzheng not only had to face the moral harshness of conservative civil servants, but also had to face the counterattack of imperial power. Therefore, after Zhang Juzheng's death, Ming Dynasty politics returned to the old path.
The reason why the Ming Dynasty officialdom formed a trend of replacing technology with morality was related to the culture at that time. Some political scholars have pointed out that Chinese political culture has always been a "political culture with the axis of culture", which is different from the "political culture with the axis of institutions" in the West. Culture determines the political ecology, and the Ming Dynasty is no exception. The Ming Dynasty was an era when Neo-Confucianism was prevalent. On the surface, Confucianism was based, but there were two major forces intertwined and conflicted. One was a conservative bureaucrat who believed in Cheng and Zhu Neo-Confucianism, and the other was an emerging bureaucrat who praised Lu Wang's Xinxue.But no matter what, they have great requirements for personal morality. In addition, China during the imperial period had a strong atmosphere of rule of man. Throughout dynasties, we have called for virtue to rule the world and filial piety to rule the world. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Ming Dynasty bureaucrats value morality over the legal system.
Controversy
View Huang Renyu rationally and is accompanied by best-selling is huge controversy. Historical community has long criticized Huang Renyu's works and his grand historical view. The biggest controversy is Huang Renyu's literary transformation of "historical analysis". When Huang Renyu narrated a historical figure, he could talk endlessly, but he would describe it more and have less basis. For example, when writing "The 15th Year of Wanli", Huang Renyu took a lot of writing about their "mentality" and "behavior" when talking about characters such as Shen Shixing, Hai Rui and Zhang Juzheng, but what is the basis for this speculation? He did not provide it, which is a taboo in historical research.
What is hidden in the view of great history is Huang Renyu who "focuses on judgment and neglects explanation". Huang Renyu is a master of lyrics. "Big Historical View", "Hongwu-type Finance", and "Digital Management" are the words he likes to speak, but he often launches new words, but lacks explanations, which makes people confused and makes it difficult for mainstream academic circles to accept. The academic community does not allow new views. For example, Qiu Luming's study of the history of the Three Kingdoms. His proposal that " Sima Yi is not the spokesperson of the Confucian clan" is a "dispute" to the views of Chen Yinke in . This "dispute" is based on detailed argumentation and grasp of the latest historical materials. Therefore, Qiu Luming's views were quickly accepted by the historical community.
In addition to netizens from Zhihu and Douban, there are also many articles criticizing Huang Renyu in the academic community. For example, Wan Ming's "Re-examination of the Financial History of the Ming Dynasty in the 16th Century - Review of Huang Renyu's Finance and Taxation in China in the 16th Century", Zhu Xiaoming and Yi Chengzhi's "Logistics of History and the 15th Year of Wanli - On Some Omissions", and Pan Shuming and Xu Sumin's "Misunderstanding of Li Zhi's Works in the 15th Year of Wanli". They mainly criticized Huang Renyu's mistakes in citing historical materials. Among them, Pan Shuming and Xu Sumin have a very sharp view. They believe that Huang Renyu’s academic prejudice is that a society like China cannot produce any new economy and new ideas, and can only be "modernized" under the influence of external forces.
"China's Great History"
Author: [US] Huang Renyu
Version: Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore February 2007
In fact, Huang Renyu's academic attitude is closely related to the direction of his life. This romantic and ostentatious Changsha, Hunan native received American academic training early and intuitively felt the completely different styles in different social ecology during that period. This made Huang Renyu actively embrace modernity, emphasize the role of technology and legal system, and hold a critical attitude towards farming society and patriarchal traditions.
Huang Renyu did not avoid the controversy. He kept reiterating and supplementing his "big historical view". His responses were found in works and speeches such as "big history will not shrink". He first opposed separating historical figures from specific contexts and making moral judgments rashly, so he said: "The Chinese value praise and criticism. When writing history, they often explain the people in their works as the best and extremely evil. This is easy to use writing history as a lyrical tool." At the same time, he advocated the inclusion of local history in the production evolution of the entire great history, and while the observer intervenes in the historical process, he grasps the spatial interaction and storyline in history. Works such as "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" are the practice of his series of views. Qi Jiguang was taken out from the context of "anti-Japanese heroes", and Hai Rui was not just a moral symbol.
Of course, most people affirmed Huang Renyu's narrative charm and his huge role in promoting the spread of Ming history.
Wu Si said: "I have read "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" four times. When I first read it in 1986, I just thought it was well written and it was said that it was the key point, but I couldn't say what the key point was, but I felt that it was vast and unrestrained, just like a dragon that saw its head but not its tail." This kind of unrestrained and unrestrained is the characteristic of Huang Renyu telling history. He always stood at a high place, trying to tell the texture of history. Reading his book, the breath of swaying and swaying came to his face. Even if his views were different, he would still enjoy it after reading it.Huang Renyu's contribution to historical narrative may be greater than his own historical viewpoint. He has opened up a unique way of writing, and market feedback proves that it is effective. In the early 1980s, Zhonghua Book Company published the Chinese version of "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli", and the 25,000 copies printed first were sold out. To this day, this work is still very popular.
"The Complete Works of Huang Renyu"
Author: [US] Huang Renyu Version: Jiuzhou Publishing House February 2012
Today, we revisit these controversies not to blame the deceased, but to reexamine the works and the so-called "Huang Renyu phenomenon". Despite the mistakes and omissions, Huang Renyu's works still provide the academic community with the inspiration to "go out". Academic research is not a closed-door business, and academic writing does not have to stick to outdated forms. If there is anything extraordinary about Huang Renyu, it is that his writing style takes into account a few elites and non-professional readers, proving that boring historical materials can also be converted into fascinating and vivid narratives.
Interestingly, Huang Renyu highly affirms digital management in his works, believing that a digital business society is a more advanced social form than a farming society, but Huang Renyu was dismissed by the State University of New York, Newports, because of "precision digital management." His "performance points" (FTE) do not meet the standards, and his academic thinking does not conform to the "professional division of labor" advocated by modern academic production. For a scholar, being fired was a huge setback, and this was also a life-long hidden secret for Huang Renyu.
When a more "progressive" social form drives itself out of the door, is it your own problem, or is this "progress" also a huge question mark? What's more, we have witnessed the era of computational rationality that Huang Renyu highly praised in his works. Computers, mobile phones, big data, and cloud computing, no era is more popular with "computing" and higher division of labor than the present. Intellectuals are nurtured as experts. Urban citizens use tools to rationally look at everyone who has passed by us. We can even predict our own future. The intelligent world of cyberpunk is not a fantasy. But in this era, has the problems that Huang Renyu is worried about been solved? Huang Renyu has left and he cannot answer this question, but this is a difficult problem in our era and a dilemma that people today should reflect on when studying.
round table
How do they view Huang Renyu and "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli"?
editing | Beijing News Intern Reporter Guo Xueyan Ding Zhenwei
Controversy and criticism all appear pale
Yi Zhongtian , born in Changsha, Hunan in February 1947, graduated from Wuhan University in 1981, obtained a master's degree in literature and stayed at school to teach. He is a well-known historical writer, scholar, and later professor of , the School of Humanities, Xiamen University.
Mr. Huang Renyu's "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" has a huge impact on our generation, which is extremely grateful and always new.
For me, Mr. Huang Renyu and the 15th Year of Wanli have the most direct influence on me, because I know that history can still be viewed like this and written like this. This influence is revolutionary and subversive to me.
. What kind of expression does a scholar choose to publish his research results is completely his freedom. Readers’ likes and dislikes can choose by looking at or not. What is there to argue about? Back then, I was studying for a postgraduate degree at Wuhan University, and a large number of non-history graduate students rush to circulate the "Fifteenth Year of Wanli". How many people can have such influence? Wouldn't all the controversy and criticism be pale?
The publication of "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" has opened up a new trend in the historical community
Jie Xizhang, a well-known critic, scholar, and researcher of modern history. He has written "The Biography of Liang Qichao", "A Person's Reading History", "Noisy and Loneliness", "Elegant and Vulgar", etc.
Huang Renyu provides a new way of historical narrative for our generation. Before him, we have never seen such a way of telling history. When I first read "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli", I was in the early 1980s. I felt a sense of novelty when I saw this book. My classmates were very excited in college and had never seen such a book.Because most of the textbooks we have seen before and the history books written by domestic scholars are stable and dogmatic; however, Huang Renyu's "The 15th Year of Wanli" has both a macro-large historical framework, and can start from micro-character characters to analyze and introduce history. The freshness at that time was particularly strong. The controversy over Huang Renyu may be because the domestic historical community has a relatively conservative side in general and it is difficult to accept new things. When you see this book, you will think that Huang Renyu's historical narrative method is not in compliance with the norms. But in fact, when we look at many Western historical works, especially popular history books, we can communicate with ordinary readers who love history.
The methods of historical research and historical narrative in China have become diverse in recent years. Similar books have gradually appeared in China in recent years, but they were absolutely not available before Huang Renyu. After the reform and opening up, just like the impact of Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng on the Chinese popular literature circle back then, and like Teresa Teng on Chinese pop songs, "The 15th Year of Wanli" is also the first impact of the hard section of history. It provides a new possibility to tell people that history can also be written in this way, and his influence is very far-reaching in this regard.
Of course, it is normal for a specific discussion of history to have different opinions on some conclusions and description methods, because it is difficult for history to have a consensus. Different perspectives of history, different materials mastered, different positions and starting points may affect historical narratives, and it is normal to have controversy. But whether you accept it or not, the publication of "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" is a new trend and has an absolute impact on young people, especially college students.
Huang Renyu is indeed amazing, but not that great
Zhang Mingyang, a historical writer and editor-in-chief of "Shanghai Book Review"
When I was in college, Huang Renyu came out with his "Fifteenth Year of Wanli" and "China's Great History", telling us that these students who "have never seen the world very much" have said that history can be written like this. Even for many history learners, Huang Renyu has adopted a very subversive writing style. It turns out that we have never read such a history, nor have anyone written such a history.
Mr. Huang Renyu's reputation has been rising and falling in the mainland for decades. At the beginning, Huang Renyu was buried and ignored in the mainland. As soon as the "Fifteenth Year of Wanli" entered China, Huang Renyu was praised on the altar. There were many books of this type of style for a while; before 2010, Huang Renyu's reputation was too high, and many people commented that he was one of the "most powerful scholars in decades", but his academic ability could not withstand such high praise. I think this may not be an objective evaluation for Mr. Huang Renyu. In recent years, the reading world has entered its third state and began to reflect on Huang Renyu. Everyone began to think that Huang Renyu is indeed powerful, but not that powerful. I think this kind of evaluation reflection is good, but in the process of re-evaluating Huang Renyu, we cannot overcorrect it and call him a very poor, second- and third-rate historian. This is something I cannot accept. I think he is still a very first-class historian.
Whether historical writing is written in academic or non-academic way is written in the United States is controversial. Mr. Shi Jingqian, who once served as the president of the American Historical Society, may have a more literary history. There are also many debates about him in the American academic community, but his status is still very high. There are always people in the historical community with different schools, different personalities, and different reading habits, so it is normal to have such controversy. I think there is no fixed standard for writing history, and there is no one or the other. It depends on the writer's level. It is not that it is not good to write easily, but it is good to write academically.
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