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Historical analysis reveals the institutional dependency and memory practices of the Qing Prince Li lineage, highlighting the modern decline and transformation of imperial clans.
This paper examines the Prince Li family, the foremost iron-cap lineage of Qing, from a family-history perspective. Using archives, registers, and Zhaolian's Xiaoting zalu (a Qing historical notebook that provides internal family memory), it analyzes the family's political rise and fall, succession conflicts, marriage, and mansion. Findings show the family's power rested on state-recognized ancestral merit (the iron-cap system) and dissolved after the imperial collapse. Material loss prompted a turn to textual memory, epitomized by Zhaolian's “monument of memory”; contemporary reuse reveals de-familialization. The case illuminates institutional dependency, memory practices, and the modern fate of Qing imperial clans.
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Wenjing Zhu (2026) studied this question.
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