Sheng Xuanhuai (1844-1916) was the driving force of China’s industrialization and modernization during the late Qing to early Republican period. All landmark developments and industries of modern China—maritime transport, coal and iron mining, banking, telegraphic communications, Red Cross China, railroad construction, cotton spinning and weaving, hydraulic engineering, and college education—were championed, if not initiated, by this powerful and resourceful merchant, politician, banker, diplomat, philanthropist, and educator.
New discoveries on this prominent figure and turbulent period can be obtained through a comprehensive examination of the ‘Sheng Xuanhuai Archive’, which is exclusively preserved in two main institutions, namely The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Shanghai Library. The archive at the university was acquired in 1985, through the unequivocal support of Former Vice-Chancellor Prof. MA Lin and Prof. CHENG Te-k’un and substantive monetary donations by the late Dr. J.S. Lee and Mr. CHENG Chi. It comprises 77 volumes with almost four million characters in over 13,000 correspondences among Sheng Xuanhuai, his family members, and colleagues. The Shanghai Library has catalogued their collection of Sheng Xuanhuai archive, which consists of 170,000 documents of various sorts. Together, the archive at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Shanghai Library is the most direct and reliable primary sources concerning the life, movements, ideas, social circle, and work of Sheng Xuanhuai. By the same token, they reveal all matters—financial, political, familial, and societal—that were of concern to the late Qing and early Republican period. The archive is key to understanding that period of seismic changes, and it will revolutionize the study of late Qing and early Republican China.
Although scholars and researchers have known about the archive for decades, few were able to make use of it, especially the archive at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. This is primarily because most correspondences were written in small, cursive script that remained unintelligible to many historians and researchers. The writings are not easily decipherable to the calligraphy experts either, because the documents often contain encrypted content—double entendre and alternate titles—and abbreviations that are only known to historians who specialize in that period. During the 1980s and 1990s, Profs. Wang Erh-min, Chan Sin-wai and Alice Lun Ng made enormous progress in publishing the archive through the support of Profs. Cheng Te-k’un and Chen Fong-ching of the Institute of Chinese Studies of CUHK. Since then, the Art Museum of CUHK recognizes the need to further ‘excavate’ this resource by transcribing and punctuating all the documents. This time-consuming and research-intensive process will be necessary to make the archive truly accessible to scholars, and build the foundation for more projects in the future.
From 2014 to 2018, a team of experts was assembled to transcribe, punctuate, paginate, and digitize the archive. Our gratitude goes, first and foremost, to Feng Jinniu, a retired librarian at the Shanghai Library and an expert on Sheng Xuanhuai who served as chief editor of the transcription and metadata project at Shanghai. This project would not have been possible without his commitment and hard work. We are also grateful to the contributions by Gao Hongxing, Chen Zhengqing, Wang Jiaju, Jan Hwang, and Zheng Wei. The digitization and platform design were successfully led by Mr. Jeff Liu and implemented by his team at the Library, we are also thankful to Dr. Louisa Lam who shared her insights to move the project along. Last but not least, we thank Prof. Leung Yuen-sang and Mr. Christopher Mok, Chairman of the Art Museum’s Advisory Committee, for their unwavering support and guidance on this project.
Josh Yiu
Director, Art Museum
