After twenty years of field work and digital collection, there are inevitably some intriguing or truly remarkable items in my collection that I may share from time to time, including interesting samples from a variety of legal texts and judicial archives from the Qing period (1644-1911).

1. How seriously did late imperial China's rulers treat their pets and/or job of archiving their everyday lives? Here're 2 registers from the No. 1 Historical Archives of the Qing royal family's cats and dogs (with names & years of birth/death). Two cats died after 9 years & one dog after 15 years.

Besides some male royals, many court concubines loved pets because they often lived lonely lives for decades, with pets becoming their most loyal and often only reliable companions. These pet's names and life cycles might also reflect the circumstances of their lady owners, many of whom died young.