Mingji beilüe 明季北略

Mingji beilüe 明季北略 "Northern campaigns during the Ming period" 明 (1368-1644) is dealing with the history of China's northern border territories during the last part of the Ming period. The author of the 24-juan long book is Ji Liuqi 計六奇 (1622-1656), courtesy name Yongbin 用賓, style Tianjiezi 天節子 or Jiufeng Jushi 九峰居士, from Wuxi 無錫, Jiangsu. He also wrote a history of the Southern Ming dynasty (1644-1661), the Mingji nanlüe 明季南略.

The Mingji beilüe is a very detailed account of what happened after the rise of the Manchu khan Nurhaci (Qing Taizu 清太祖, r. 1616-1626) in 1595, how the Ming failed to control the northern regions, and how Li Zicheng 李自成 (1606-1645) was able to conquer the Ming capital Beijing.

The book is quite reliable because of the short time distance between the events and the compilation but it suffers from historiographic shortcomings by including popular tales. Unfortunately it was included among the list of books to be destroyed as anti-Manchu during the so-called literary inquisition during the late Qianlong reign-period 乾隆 (1736-1795) but luckily was not destroyed and survived in the shape of unprinted manuscripts. In the mid-19th century a first print was produced by a scholar called Bansong Jushi 半松居士 from Liulichang 琉璃廠 near Beijing. Yet it must be doubted if the book he had printed was the original version. This version was reprinted several times before an original manuscript was found which was more than 40 chapters longer than the Bansong jushi version. This manuscript was reprinted in 1984 by the Zhonghua Book Company 中華書局.