The historical narrative of the Wanli Korean campaign in the Qing Official Ming History

Abstract

The Ming History (明史 Mingshi) by Qing official historians took more than 90 years to complete, and Wan Sitong's 萬斯同 Draft Ming History (明史稿 Mingshi gao), Wang Hongxu's 王鴻緒 Draft Ming History, and the Ming History palace edition overseen by Zhang Tingyu 張廷玉 were the most important histories of the Ming over its different stages of compilation. Wan Sitong gave much attention to the writing of history in the biographies from the Wanli Korea Campaign, Wang Hongxu did not give them much attention, and Zhang Tingyu repudiated and even negated them. In Zhang Tingyu's Ming History, the Annals of Shenzong (神宗本紀 Shenzong benji) set the tone of repudiating the Korea campaign. Due to their clan, the Bozhou Campaign (播州之役 Bozhou zhiyi), or the Liaodong Incident (遼東事變 Liaodong shibian), nearly none of the Ming generals from the eastern expedition to Korea were given biographies due to their participation in the Korean War. The History of the Choson (朝鮮傳 Chaoxian zhuan) gives a negative evaluation that denies or undervalues relevant people and battles. On the one hand, this was due to the influence of historical sources. Due to Yang Gao’s 楊鎬 responsibility for defeat in the Battle of Saerhu 薩 爾 滸 之 役, the compilers of the Veritable Records of Ming Shenzong (明神宗實錄 Ming Shenzong shilu) followed the account of Ding Yingtai 丁應泰 in their records and denied the accomplishments of Yang Gao and the Ming army in Korea. On the other hand, due to real political needs, as the commanders of the eastern expedition to Korea later became the military rival of the Later Jin in Liaodong, an attitude of denial had to be adopted against them to create legitimacy for the Qing dynasty. These were the two main factors that determined the way in which the Qing official Ming History wrote the history of the Wanli Korean War.