A bereaved emperor who condemned his son to a life of confinement, a bright prince entangled in a deadly political struggle, and a long-gone royal mansion that stood witness to all the love, hate and sadness - Yan Chongnian would have had no chance to uncover this distant past if he did not "hold the key".
"That key was my knowledge of the Manchu language," the historian said, referring to the language used by the rulers of China's last feudal dynasty, the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).
Although viewed by many as the ultimate authority on all issues related to that period, he experienced a moment of uncertainty a few years ago when he was invited to the site of what was once a grand abode for a Manchu wangye, or duke, in a northwestern suburb of Bejing.
"Judging by what remained of the construction - the groundwork and the moat - it was worthy of a wangye," Yan said. "But here lies an apparent contradiction: During the Qing dynasty, wangye lived in the center of the capital, inside what is now modern Beijing's second ring road."
According to Yan, this contradiction had led some researchers to believe the compound, now barely discernible, had belonged to Wu Sangui, a Han general who allied with the Qing at the empire's founding and was made a duke. Yan was unconvinced.
"Not long after that visit, I accepted an invitation to teach at a university in Taiwan," he said. "During that stay in 2008, I spent 10 days searching for information at Taipei's Palace Museum, which is filled with invaluable antiques and documents originally from its counterpart, the Palace Museum in Beijing.
"There, I tripped over a file compiled by the Qing ministry of internal affairs on the completion in 1721 of a royal abode, at the same location as the one I saw in Beijing."
Yan couldn't wait for the end of his semester to fly back to Beijing. "I'd had the story's ending," he said. "What I needed next was the opening."
That was soon found in the countless Qing files kept by the First Historical Archives of China, in Beijing.
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A bereaved emperor who condemned his son to a life of confinement, a bright prince entangled in a deadly political struggle, and a long-gone royal mansion that stood witness to all the love, hate and sadness - Yan Chongnian would have had no chance to uncover this distant past if he did not "hold the key".
