My grandfather, Lin Yanqing, was a Han Chinese who devoted his life to the study of history.
Lin Yanqing was born in May 1944 in Tianjin. He studied hard and was sent to Tianjin Yaohua Middle School on bail in September 1957. Influenced by his father Lin Shuhui since childhood, he loved Literature and History, and achieved good results in Chinese, History and other Arts subjects in middle school.
After taking the college entrance examination, I was admitted to the study History program at Nankai University. However, political changes soon ensued and as a result, my grandfather did not spend much time for real studies and classes at university.
After graduating from the university in December 1968, he was assigned to work in the countryside. For ten years, he worked in a wide field doing farm work.
He never had any opportunity to put his love for History to practice.. During this time, he married Zhou Guixian, then director of the Women's Federation of a commune in Hebei Province. Soon after they started a family.
In 1978, something happened that changed his life. The Ministry of Education held graduate student recruitment examinations. This provided a rare opportunity for Lin Yanqing to finally realize his dream of becoming a historian. After an arduous and rigorous period of interview and written tests, hard review, he was admitted to the History Department of Nankai University.
This was the turning point in his.
Fortunately, his tutor was Professor Zheng Tianting, a world-renowned historian. Under his tutelage, Lin Yanqing eagerly learned the ropes to become a historian and worked hard towards future history teaching and research. During his three years of study, he continued to juggle between research work and family. It did not help that his wife worked in a different city. Often, it was challenging. But he not only kept on working, but also took good care of his wife despite the distance between them. This enabled Lin to devote himself to his studies and eventually graduated at the age of thirty seven.
He stayed on to teach and do research in the History Department. He received his master's degree in 1982 and was promoted to lecturer in 1983. In September of the same year, he received a piece of excellent news. His wife, Zhou Guixian, was transferred to Work in Tianjin. Finally, they could be together after being away from each other for years.
He suffered a lot from the long hours of research work and teaching, but through continuous efforts, he made a great breakthrough in his academic research. In 1994, he published his first academic monograph, Biography of Emperor Jiajing, which won the third prize of the sixth Social Science Excellent Achievement in Tianjin. He also edited the Biography of Chinese Imperial Concubines and co-edited the History of The Rise and Fall of Chinese Feudal Dynasties. He was promoted to full professor in 1997.
Since entering the new century, his career and life have been on a smooth path. Not only did his wife and children get on with their lives, but he also continued to make breakthroughs in research and teaching. He not only published several books, but also served as a doctoral supervisor. At the same time, in 2005, he also participated in a major project in China - writing a biography of the Qing dynasty. His academic influence continues to. In 2001, he was a member of the Ming History Society of China and an editorial board member of The Audit History of China.
In September 2009, after reaching the age of 65, he retired from the School of History, but he still served as a consultant to the Chinese Society of Ming History. In his spare time, he continues to write academic papers and participate in many academic seminars, making contributions to the study of the History of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.