The study of regional social history has been an important field in the study of ancient Chinese history. However, before Song Dynasty, because of the lack of local historical materials, it is difficult to do regional social history research generally. However, the study of regional social history is a powerful perspective to promote the progress of history, and the study of Tang history is indispensable. As early as 1997, Professor aidanyuan of Kyoto University of Japan gathered his own papers as "the study of the regional social history of Tang Dynasty"; The Japanese Tang Dynasty History Research Association also realized the importance of this problem. The eighth part of the report set of Tang Dynasty History Research Association, edited and published in 1999, is "the country and region in the history of East Asia"; Although all papers are scattered, they may not all fit the theme, but the problem consciousness of "regional society" is very strong. When the Chinese Tang history society planned to hold an academic seminar in Shanghai Normal University in 2007, I strongly advocated the theme of "regional society" at the preparatory meeting. The result was the book "national and regional social research of Tang Dynasty: the collection of papers of the 10th annual meeting of the Chinese Tang history society", edited by Professor Yan Yaozhong. Due to the material reasons, the topics were not concentrated and the promotion was limited.
Fortunately, there are relatively many historical materials preserved in the two Beijing areas of Tang Dynasty, especially the large number of inscriptions unearthed in the last two or thirty years, which provides a deep possibility for this study. This work is entitled "Chang'an is not far away: the rural society of the capital of Tang Dynasty". The author chooses the Jingji area of Tang Dynasty as the exploration field of regional social history research, collects traditional literature, stone carving materials, archaeological relics materials, and even relevant records in Dunhuang Turpan documents, and reviews the specific rural society in the capital region, and the restoration of the villages in the capital region The statistics of local household registration, the investigation of livelihood of the people have surpassed the previous people and even filled in the gaps. There are many aspects of this study that the previous researchers have not done, and this is the task of the historians.
At the same time, to deal with such a regional social history between urban and rural areas and around the capital, historical materials are fragmented and systematic, so we need to have conscious theoretical thinking. In this respect, the author also made full efforts, and the conclusion can be compared with the study of regional social history in song, yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.
In spring semester 2006, I once had a course of "Hu language and civilization in western region" for newly established students of Chinese Academy in Renmin University of China. Xu Chang is a representative of the course and has a chance to talk to me. I found that the undergraduate study seriously, and have the qualification to do knowledge after all the problems. Later, Professor mengxianshi of the Chinese Academy worked together to organize the "newly unearthed documents of Turpan". Xu Chang wrote an article about "the city owner". Teacher Meng introduced her to talk to me. I think it is quite good. After the revision, it is recommended to publish in the western region research. Xu Chang later changed from Sui and Tang Dynasties to the study of Qin and Han history. He was taught by Prince and Professor today. He had some experience in social life, gender and unearthed slips of Qin and Han Dynasties. He published several articles in journals such as historical research, and made a breakthrough.
In 2010, Xu Chang was admitted to the Department of history of Peking University, followed me to study Ph.D. and transferred to the field of Sui and Tang Dynasties History. He successively participated in the projects of "sorting and studying the newly obtained documents in Khotan in Chinese", "sorting and studying the epitaphs of Western Tang Dynasty", "sorting and researching the newly unearthed and scattered Turpan documents at home and abroad", At the same time, he also participated in the "book class of Tiansheng order" hosted by Mr. Huang Zhengjian, Institute of history of the Academy of Social Sciences and "Walking Horse Building Wu Jian reading class" hosted by scholars from Peking University and other units, and received many training. She studied hard, worked hard and completed many papers on different subjects, and published in the publications such as "literature history", "Chinese literature history", "Literature", "silk research", "Dunhuang research", "Wu Jian research" and other publications. At the request of Helen Wang and Valerie Hansen, she wrote an article on the parallel of money and silk in Tang Dynasty for the "Silk Road as money on the Silk Road" project, which was translated and published in the Journal of the Royal Asian society, It is very precious for a doctoral student.
Now, Xu Chang's manuscript has been revised, polished, supplemented and improved in theory for many years, and finally included in the "three links Harvard Yanjing academic series", which will be published and listed in my order. It is the order of the brief description of the academic context of the research on the regional social history of Tang Dynasty and the communication with Xu Chang.
Completed in the heat of July 31, 2018
In longrunyuan Zhongshi, Peking University
