The Draft History of the Qing Dynasty: A Plain-Language Edition

The Draft History of Qing was completed in the 1920s. Compiled by the Qing History Museum under the direction of Zhao Erxun during the late Qing and early Republican periods, it consists of 536 volumes: 25 volumes of imperial annals, 142 volumes of treatises, 53 volumes of tables, and 316 volumes of biographies. With more than eight million characters, it records 329 years of history, from the rise of Qing Taizu Nurhaci in 1583 to the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. The book draws on a wealth of historical sources, making extensive and detailed use of materials from the former Imperial History Office and archival documents, maps, and books from the Qing palace. It is an important resource for the study of Qing history.