Qing historian and classicist from Jiading, author of A Critical Study of the Seventeen Histories and a defence of Zheng Xuan's reading of the Book of Documents
Mural guide
In an archive hall, tall wooden shelves hold scrolls and bound books with small tags, and one person climbs a ladder with their back turned; a long table in front holds an unrolled river map, a bronze lamp and a copper jug, with a city wall seen through the window.
Wang Mingsheng, courtesy name Fengjie, literary names Litang and Xizhuang, came from Jiading in Jiangsu; he studied poetry under Shen Deqian and the classics under Hui Dong. Placed second in the palace examination of 1754, he became a Hanlin compiler, came first in a review of Hanlin scholars, and rose to sub-chancellor of the Grand Secretariat and vice minister of rites, before misuse of post-horses cost him a demotion. After his mother's death he never returned to office and spent thirty years writing in Suzhou. His Later Case on the Book of Documents (Shangshu hou'an) set out Zheng Xuan's commentary, his hundred-chapter Critical Study of the Seventeen Histories (Shiqishi shangque) compared annals, treatises, tables and biographies to expose their discrepancies, and his notebook Eshu bian ran to another hundred chapters. He died in January 1798 at seventy-six by Chinese reckoning; his study of the histories is usually named alongside Zhao Yi's and Qian Daxin's as one of the three major Qing works of historical criticism.
The Draft History of the Qing says Wang Mingsheng wrote the Shiqi shi shangque in 100 chapters. Within each history he cross-checked the annals, treatises, tables and biographies to find where they differ, used unofficial histories and miscellaneous writings to show their errors, and treated geography, offices, institutions and objects in particular detail. He also wrote the Shangshu hou'an in thirty chapters, devoted to the learning of Zheng Kangcheng (Zheng Xuan).
Qing