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A. L. Y. CHUNG
The practice of ordering a number of Hanlins to become Recorders of the Emperor's Deeds found its origin in an edict by the Emperor K'ang-hsi in the first year of his reign (1662). He ordered two officials selected from the Academy, one Manchu and one Chinese, to attend him in monthly shifts.29 They were to record his actions both in the Manchu and the Chinese languages. Their writings were to be sealed in secret, and even the emperor himself was not permitted to see them.30 This may be regarded as the beginning of the Ch'ing Record Office and the first time the Manchus had set up this typical Chinese institution.
On the face of it, it was rather paradoxical for an autocratic monarch to devise a method whereby his own actions were recorded in black and white. The likely explanation is that the emperor strove to impress his people with his adherence to enlightened ideas. The Confucian precept of good government was that the monarch should live up to the moral standards prescribed for him by past sages. Officials and people would look up to him for example. Thus, if the emperor was moral and diligent, the Confucians maintained, the Empire would be at peace, with or without the application of the legal system. The Emperor K'ang-hsi therefore hoped to implant in his people's minds the impression that his actions were enlightened enough to be favourably judged by posterity. They would then be of the opinion that he had played well his part as a Confucian monarch. Moreover, the system of recording the emperors' actions had been practised for centuries. The emperor thought it desirable to follow the revered Confucian tradition.
However, in the practical application of the system, the emperor seemed to be quite vexed by this "spying duty" of his own officials. He gradually departed from the strict observance of the system and thought out pretexts to circumvent its liberal tone. Using yet another Confucian idea that attendance on parents was natural and filial, he commanded the record officials not to follow him when he daily visited his mother in the Inner Court.32
In 1679, the emperor's doubts about the contents of these records were revealed by his inquiry whether any personal inventions and prejudices had been added to them. The record officials replied that the records were to be examined jointly by the twenty-two members together and that none of them would record official memorials privately. This, however, still did not