ABSTRACT
Commentary (1) Huang Taiji’s emphasis on the translation of selected material from the official histories
of the Liao, Song, (Nüzhen) Jin and Yuan dynasties from Chinese into Manchu fully reveals his political ambition of challenging the Ming and eventually replacing them to
become the emperor of the Manchu, Mongols and, most importantly for him, the whole of China. It can be no accident that three of the four dynasties whose histories were to be translated (namely, the Liao, Jin and Yuan) were non-Chinese dynasties, whose rise to power held an obvious fascination for Huang Taiji (Durrant 1979:656).
