Documents 2-8 are selections taken from the Da Qing lichao shilu (Veritable Records of Successive Reigns of the Qing Dynasty). These represent only a portion of the many QSL documents on this case. What follows here is a brief description of the Shilu. Complete information about the Shilu may be found in the Reference Guides section, under Dynastic Histories, chronicles, and fang-lüe.

The Qing shilu (QSL), essentially a documentary history, is an outstanding tool for identifying and organizing research projects on the Qing. Memorials and depositions, for example, are often summarized in the QSL, and can be unearthed in the archives themselves or in printed documentary collections. Other essential sources, such as the unofficial writings of individuals and local gazetteers, can be located by careful tracking down of references to persons and places in the QSL. However, because the QSL was compiled exclusively from the perspective of the throne, for documents originating at lower levels it is only a finding aid.

The original purpose of the Shilu was to provide a history of each emperor's reign for the reference (and instruction) of his successor. Compilation of the Shilu for each reign was begun shortly after the emperor's death by a unit (Shiluguan 實錄館) specially set up for the purpose. The compilers relied for their information mainly upon the "Diaries of Activity and Repose" (Qijuzhu ce 起居注冊), which recorded the emperor's daily public business, as well as upon Grand Council copies of confidential communications, the most important of which were in the form of "court letters" (see below). The completed Shilu was copied out in five sets, each consisting of a principal and a duplicate; each set included a complete text in Chinese, Manchu, and Mongolian. These sets were distributed within the palace and at the old imperial capital at Mukden (Shenyang).

Although the purpose of this documentary history was high-level reference (definitely not for publication), the texts of documents were necessarily edited. Therefore, although the completeness and accuracy of the Shilu is generally very high, we must definitely treat it as an edited version of original documents.

Two kinds of documents make up the bulk of the QSL:

Court letters (ting-ji 廷寄 or ji-xin 寄信)

Communications enclosing an imperial edict, sent by the Grand Council to officials or military commanders in the field. These are normally drafted (ni 擬) by the grand councilors, submitted (jin-cheng 進呈) to the emperor for review, then sent to the field by courier.

The archives contain some draft court letters which bear the emperor's personal editing in vermilion thus enabling the researcher to distinguish the imperial viewpoint from that of his advisers. At the archives, every effort should be made to locate the original draft (gong-zhong ting-ji 宮中廷寄 ). What appears in the QSL is an edited version which masks the drafting and emending process.

The form of the court letter is illustrated by Document 2.1. This copies a Grand Council file record (‘’lufu‘’ 錄副 of the original court-letter that went to the field (source: Shang-yu-tang fang-ben). The contents enclosed by the opening and closing material are identical with the QSL version in this case. The senders of court letters (those grand councilors who "receive"-feng-奉 the "edict") would be written on line 1 of court letters before the last decade of Qianlong. In subsequent reigns they are masked by the impersonal jun-ji da-chen. The addressee(s) are written on line 2. Note that the QSL does not indicate addressees, although it is usually possible to identify them from the authorship of the base memorial cited at the beginning of the document.

Court letters in the QSL are headed by the words, yu jun-ji da-chen 諭軍機大臣. This heading should be considered as the voice of the QSL compilers, not part of the document itself. This might be translated, "An edict to the Grand Councilors:"

Imperial edicts (shang-yu 上諭)

Commands generally drafted by the grand councilors and sent, not directly to the field, but to the Grand Secretariat for formal promulgation throughout the empire, were the "open" (ming-fa 明發) channel through which the emperor made his will known. As distinct from court letters, these documents were not directed to specific recipients, nor were they considered secret. Their contents often concerned official appointments, promotions, rewards, or penalties; or normative imperial pronouncements. Unlike court letters, their contents had the force of precedent in the compilation of substatutes in the Qing Code. Where court letters were specific operational instructions to individual officials, edicts were pronouncements to the entire bureaucracy, and through them to the empire at large. They often appeared in the Peking Gazette (Jing-bao 京報), a generic name for commercially printed copies that informed the interested public. Like court letters, edicts went through a drafting and checking process. When working in the archives, every effort should be made to find the original draft edict (gong-zhong shang-yu 宮中上諭) which may contain imperial editing which distinguishes the emperor's view from that of his Grand Council advisers.

The dating of QSL documents is year and month by reign-period and number (e.g., Dao-guang 22.1,) followed by cyclical signs for the days. Cyclical signs appear at the beginning of each new "business day" following a large circle. The date in Western reckoning can be found by consulting a concordance.