One of history’s uses is to remind us how unlikely things can be. The
strange case of the conspirator Zeng Jing, the emperor he tried to overthrow, and the text that they ended up coauthoring, seems a perfect proof
of that contention. And yet, another of history’s uses is to show us how
pragmatically people can respond to the most unlikely circumstances.
Once again, Zeng Jing and his emperor light the way.
That there is so much documentation to illuminate these particular
moments from the 1720s and 1730s in imperial China is due to the astounding thoroughness of the scholar-officials of the last dynasty, who
witnessed—and sometimes gave wings to—the events as they unfolded.
N ot only did their streams of reports to the throne encapsulate their own
responses to what was happening in their various jurisdictions all across
China, but also the rules of procedural propriety led them to repeat in
their own reports the exact words used by the emperor in all his comments
to them, and in addition to enclose for the emperor’s benefit the drafts of
any treasonous material that happened to fall into their hands. These documents, infinitely precious to the historian, were in turn preserved by generations of court archivists; after the Qing dynasty fell in 1912, these
archives entered a precarious stage of their existence, often moving in their
crates just ahead of the encroaching battle zones. But at the close of the
twentieth century they ended up stored in climate-controlled sanctuaries,
some in Taipei-and some in Beijing, waifs of the political revolution that
for so long ravaged China, yet, magically,Mot its victims.