Comments
I wonder if it was bad luck to give a gift of knives in the Ming as it is today, and whether the Sultan had been so informed.
Bo-ni is wrong. This Original Chinese character 漢字 is （波勒）which shuold be translated as " Bo-le"
I noticed the collection is not complete. Is this an on-going project? Will the entire Ming-shi-lu be made available online?
sammyz345202@earthlink.com
Will it be better for cross referencing if the names thus translated are attached to the original Chinese Characters in brackets?
nmchow@yahoo.com.sg
nmchow@yohoo.com.sg
This is the year a well was built at the foot of Bukit Cina in Melaka. Legend had it that Hang Le Po (Princess of China) was offered as a wife to Sultan Mansur Syah. Melaka tourists information takes her literally as the daughter of Ming emperor. Had this been the case, the Ming Shi Lu should have some entries, especially in this particular page when the conferment and gifts for Sultan Mansur Syah were mentioned. There was none.
IN Malay, "Puteri Cina" means daughter of Chinese heritage and not princess of royal blood. It was common then for Chinese men to marry native women.
You apparently have a bug on the "Cha-shan" page under place names. It returns an error message instead of a page.
Jon Fernquest
bayinnaung@yahoo.com
[Peter Schoppert: Thanks Jon, this bug has been fixed. It applied to a few other pages as well...]
I would recommend adding the ability to add a comment to the person and place name pages since the reference of these names can be ambiguous.
Sincerely,
Jon Fernquest
bayinnaung@yahoo.com
[Peter Schoppert: Good suggestion - we will put that on the list of technical upgrades to the site. But we still have a number of "content" improvements we need to do, so it might take some time. Thank you again for your feedback.]
The two sentences:
"Also the grandfather of the Ava-Burma ruling family member Mang Qi-sui was
extremely loyal, but he became involved in disputes and thereby met his death."
"Mang Qi-sui is to be shown great compassion and assistance."
Could contradict each other if the first was read:
"Also the grandfather of the Ava-Burma ruling family member, Mang Qi-sui, was
extremely loyal, but he became involved in disputes and thereby met his death."
Otherwise, it wouldn't appear to make any sense at all. I know it is probably an
unreasonable request, but is there any chance that you might add the original
classical Chinese text (gu-wen, wen-yan-wen) in the future? I'm not aware of any library in Southeast Asia or any place online with the classical Chinese Ming Shi-lu text. I would like to map this very ambiguous passage to actual events.
Sincerely,
Jon Fernquest
bayinnaung@yahoo.com
[Peter Schoppert: Jon, thank you for this and other suggestions. We would certainly like to link the translation to the Chinese original text, and certain design decisions were made with that eventual goal in mind. But as you correctly point out, there is not such version of the classical Chinese freely available online. The Academia Sinica was a "members only" version online, and we are in touch with them should they change their policy and open it up to public access. If you do hear of any efforts to put the classical Chinese version online, please let us know.]
please make your text reader friendly. please make use of spaces.
[ed note: Thanks for your comment. We are progressively introducing paragraph spacing into the longer entries in order to make them easier on the eye. However please remember that this punctuation is not original to the sources, which are unpunctuated.]
Yong-le: Year 17, Month 10, Day 12
"You mu st not rashly send troops on this account. If you do so, is this not the same as having no Court?"
"If you develop good relations with neighbouring countries and do not engage in mu tual aggression, the prosperity which will result will be limitless. King, you should bear this in mind!"
"must" and "mutual" have been partially italicized and separated from the rest of the word- typo or (more likely) some automated program that has been over zealous?
[editor: Thanks for spotting this. It has been fixed.]
Is this a referral to Joano Rodriguez, the famous Jesuit interpreter who spent most of his adult life in Japan, and his Portuguese crew who arrived in Peking on 14 February?
See, Michael Cooper (SJ), Rodriguez the Interpreter: An Early Jesuit in Japan and China (New York, 1994), p.342-43.
Many, MANY thanks for this incredibly useful website!
I just heard about it, and am only beginning to explore the many treasures in it!
CONGRATULATIONS!
Jack Frazier
3 May 2005
This describes one of the most important events in Burmese history, the invasion of Ava by the Mohnyin Shans from 1525-27 which completely changed the map of Burma until the reconquest of Ava by the Burmese in 1555 (Harvey, History of Burma, 106-7, 125). This significant change in Burmese history appears very insignificant in this memorial to the Chinese throne. Was the misrepresentation unintentional or deliberate? In the late 18th century there were deliberate misrepresentations of border incidents to the Burmese throne.
Si Lun = Sawlon (Mohnyin Shan ruler who invaded Ava)
Meng Bie = Pyi (Prome)
The ruler of Pyi joined with Sawlon in invading Ava.
"Si Zhen" is most likely Tho-han-bwa, Tho-han sawbwa, Sawlon's son, who ruled Ava after the second invasion in 1527.
Mang-Qi-Sui's grandfather must be Narapati king of Ava (1502-27) who died in the second invasion, but Mang-Qi-Sui?
It's interesting that Hsenwi (Theinni, Onpaung in Burmese sources) is not mentioned since this state fought as an ally of Ava during the invasions. Were Ava and Onpaung the "two strong enemies" that Mohnyin was fighting against?
(email: bayinnaung@yahoo.com)
Meng Gao = Mogok
(Source: Laichen Sun, Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan, 2000)
This source would be a good addition to the bibliography, since the Ming Shr-lu is the Chinese source used most often in it for reconstructing 15th-16th century Shan history. The ability to paste into comments would be nice since bibliographical entries are long. It comments on many of the entries.
(email: bayinnaung@yahoo.com)
Dear Geoff
Many congratulations and many thanks. It's great to have it all in ths form.
(ppasuk@chula.ac.th)