The Chi-shih-lu of Yü Pen: A Note on the Sources for the Founding of the Ming Dynasty

Abstract

In a 1926 article Wada Sei criticized the chronology of early Ming history given in the Ming T'ai-tsu shih-lu and other official sources. His conclusions have won general acceptance. Wada based his revisions on the Chi-shih-lu of Yu Pen, a lost work surviving only in fragmentary quotation. Recently, a more extensive text of the latter has come to light, and internal analysis of the longer text shows that its chronology is too confused for any of the Chi-shih-lu to be reliable as a corrective to the official sources. This removes the evidential basis for Wada's revised chronology, and requires the substitution for it of the order of events given in the Ming T'ai-tsu shih-lu .