This study is about the political roles of Ming official historiography. As a result of the political arrangement by former emperors, the making of official historiography had gradually become a stable system since Zhengtong period. Its close relation and interaction with the Grand Secretariat and Hanlin Academy had caused continuous influence to the compilation of those official works, which were usually susceptible to the political situation.
Emperors like Jingtai and Jiajing Emperor, who had no right to the throne at the beginning, used different works of official compilation to establish their own political authority or legitimacy. And there were also some emperors, Tianshun Emperor for example, tried to use the predictable rules of official historiography to control the writing of their own Veritable Record.
However, official historiography in Ming China was not an exclusive political resource that only for emperors. Grand Secretaries, who had become the main directors of most works of official historiography since Zhengtong period, also had various ways to use those compilation tasks for their own purposes. Some Grand Secretaries tried to slander their political opponents in the Veritable Record of the former emperor, while some tried to turn the record into a political textbook, showing “the proper ways of ruling” to the new ruler.
One the other hand, to some officials that were in the work teams of the official compilation, history should reflect more moral lessons, methods of governing and “proper orthodoxy”, or simply restore the truth, rather than cater to political needs of the regime. By making sharp criticism, specific suggestions, or even compiling their own works, these officials tried to persuade the court to correct the error in the official historiography. And their efforts had not only promoted the development of unofficial historiography, but also influenced some official tasks of historiography, such as the compilation of the national history, in later period.