This article uses the perspectives of historical memory and narrative to reexamine two late Ming texts long denounced as “falsified history”— Zhishen lu (The Account of Self-Dedication) and Congwang suibi (Casual Notes Written while Accompanying the Emperor in Exile) — published in the early seventeenth century. These two works were widely known among late Ming and early Qing officials and literati, and significantly reformulated the historical memory of the Jianwen emperor. In this article, I present the process through which the obscured memory of a tragically deposed emperor became a fully flesh and blood figure in two fabricated historical narratives. I argue that the formation and popularity of the two texts provide us with a valuable case to investigate the intricate interactions among history, memory, and writing.

This article begins with a discussion of the rhetoric employed in the memorials submitted to the Wanli court concerning the reinstatement of Jianwen and his martyrs; the prefaces and postscripts of Zhishen lu; and contemporary unofficial histories. I demonstrate that political discourse, readers’ reception, and commercial promotion all contributed to the prevalence of the “imagined” history of Jianwen’s exile during the late Wanli period. Next, I trace the formation of these two texts from earlier private historical records, including biji (miscellaneous notes). A close examination of these sources shows that Zhishen lu is the product of its writer collating and editing previous records. Based on Zhishen lu, the writer of Congwang suibi made further modifications to create an elaborate and moving story of a group of loyalists who followed Jianwen in exile for almost forty years. Finally, I turn to the two texts themselves to analyze the elements that might have appealed to the sensibility of the late Ming readers.