Man-Qing yeshi 滿淸野史

Man-Qing yeshi 滿淸野史 "Unofficial histories of the Manchurian Qing dynasty" is a series of collectanea (congshu 叢書) of privately written histories covering the Qing period 清 (1644-1911) or certain interesting themes of this time. It was published in the 1920s by the Changfu Press 昌福公司 in Chengdu 成都, Sichuan. There is a reprint from 1988 by the Ba-Shu Press 巴蜀書社 in Chengdu, published by the Sichuan Xinhua Book House 四川省新華書店. Part of the books has also been published in the collectanea Qingdai yeshi congshu 清代野史叢書 by the Beijing guji press 北京古籍出版社 in 1999. The publisher of the original is not known.

The collection is divided into five series and includes 97 books in 48 volumes. Not all authors are known by name, and a lot of the others have adopted alias names like Hanshishi 漢史氏 "The Chinese Historian" or Laoli 老吏 "The old petty official". Part of the stories is written in the style of histories in their entirety, like Luo Dunrong's 羅惇曧 (1872-1924) Zhong-Fa bingshi benmo 中法兵事本末 or the anonymous book Wuxu zhengbian shimo 戊戌政變始末. The stories cover a wide range of topics, some deal with the history of the Qing dynasty in general, others with certain events like the Reform Movement of 1898, border conflicts with Russia or the railroad affair in Sichuan that led to the Revolution of 1911. A third type of stories reports very private and intimate affairs from the Qing court.

The decade after the downfall of the Qing dynasty was a time when Chinese historians were very biased against the Manchus and tried everything to put all the blame for China's problems on the Manchu dynasty. The collection Man-Qing yeshi is nonetheless a very important treasure for the history of modern China. A lot of stories provide insight into details of the court life that official historiography does not allow.