Qingbai leichao 清稗類鈔

Qingbao leichao 清稗類鈔 "Categorized anthology of petty matters from the Qing period" is an anthology of historiographical essays from the whole Qing period 清 (1644-1911) compiled during the early 20th century by the writer and poet Xu Ke 徐珂 (1869-1928), original name Chang 昌, courtesy name Zhongke 仲可, from Hangxian 杭縣 (today part of Hangzhou 杭州, Zhejiang). He obtained the juren degree in 1889. In 1894, he entered the staff of general Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 (1859-1916), but soon left for Shanghai, where he was editor for the journals Waijiaobao 外交報 and Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌. Apart from his encyclopaedia Qingbai leichao, Xu Ke wrote the poetry collections Lidai baihua shi xuan 歷代白話詩選 and Gujin ci xuanji ping 古今詞選集評, the literary books Xiaozilizhai wen 小自立齋文, Keyan 可言 andKangju biji 康居筆記, and has compiled the two parts of the series Tiansuge congkan 天蘇閣叢刊.

The book was finished in 1917 and published by the Shangwu Yinshu Press 商务印書館. This first edition was divided into 48 volumes in 8 series. A second edition from 1984 by the Zhonghua Shuju Press 中華書局 comprises 13 volumes.

The Qingbai leichao includes a large amount of unofficial historiographical sources, including parts of collected writings, "brush-notes"-style (biji 筆記) essays, stories and reports from the early Chinese newspapers. It imitates the collection Songbai leichao 宋稗类鈔 not only in the idea but also in the structure. It is divided into 92 chapters (the 1984 edition in 90 chapters) that each cover a specific encyclopaedic theme, from astronomy and calendar to all aspects of statecraft like administrative geography, international relations, state rituals, educational system, military, judicial system, state offices, to human affairs like religion, matrimony, customs and habits, human character, language, handicrafts and professions, arts, literature, music, objects and tools, down to plants and animals. The whole collections includes 13,500 articles. It includes a preface by the compiler and one by Zhu Zongyuan 諸宗元 (1875-1932).

The content is extremely vast and includes all aspects of history, society, state, the arts and human life. It contains a lot of information on the Opium Wars, the Reform Movement of 1898 (Wuxu bianfa 戊戌變法) and the Revolution of 1911. The extracts and quotations from newspapers and gazettes are of special interest because they reflect the immediate reactions of society towards political matters and the discourses about contemporary issues, which are not dealt with in historiographic texts. The Qingbai leichao is not a historiographical work. That means that it does not evaluate the sources it makes use of. As a source book, nonetheless, it is a profound treasury. From this aspect, the old term yeshi 野史 "wild history" as something unofficial and therefore not reliable does not apply any more to the Qingbai leichao because it does not interpret history but only provides the historian with a lot of different sources. It is therefore a pity that the compiler did not pay more attention to an exact indicating of the origin of his sources.