Meng Sen (1868-14 January 1938), supporter of constitutional government and a leader of the Chin-pu-tang. He became an authority on the Ming-Ch'ing transitional period and a professor of history at Peking University. A native of Yanghu hsien, Kiangsu, Meng Sen was born into a prominent family in a region where scholars abounded. After becoming a salaried sheng-yuan, he abandoned the traditional course of study leading to a civil service career and devoted his time to the study of current affairs. The words and deeds of Cheng Hsiao-hsu (q.v.) after his return from diplomatic duties in Japan in 1894 impressed Meng so much that he decided to study in Japan. From 1901 to 1904 he studied law at Hosei University in Tokyo.

In the spring of 1905 Meng Sen accepted an invitation from Cheng Hsiao-hsu, then commissioner of border defense in Kwangsi, to join his military staff at Lungchou. Meng soon learned the art of poetry from Cheng, who had won acclaim for his poetical accomplishments, and he also exhibited a talent for historical writing. After combing through the official and private documents he found at the Lungchou post and doing additional research, he wrote the Kuang-hsi pien-shih p'ang-chi [addenda to the history of Kwangsi border defense affairs]. It was published in August 1905, with a commentary by Yen Fu (q.v.).

When Cheng resigned from the service in 1905, he and Meng Sen went to Shanghai, where they helped organize the Yü-pei li-hsien kung-hui [society for the preparation of constitutional government]. In July 1908 Meng Sen became the chief editor of the Tung-fang tsa-chih {Eastern Miscellany) ; it was published by the Commercial Press, of which Cheng Hsiao-hsu was a director. Meng overhauled the magazine's format and added such features as a column on constitutional government. Meng Sen resigned from the Tung-fang tsa-chih after being elected to the Kiangsu provincial assembly in May 1909. That October, Chang Chien (q.v.), the chairman of the assembly, sent him to visit the provincial assemblies of Fengtien, Kirin, Heilungkiang, Chihli (Hopei), and Shantung to urge them to join with the assemblies of Kiangsu and other provinces in petitioning the Ch'ing court for the formation of a national constitutional government. Three such petitions later were presented to the imperial authorities, but they were ignored. In June 1911 Meng accompanied Chang Chien to Changteh for discussions with Yuan Shih-k'ai. He then went to Manchuria to reestablish contact with the leaders of the provincial assemblies in that region. In November of that year, he drafted the proclamation for the attack on Nanking by the revolutionary forces of Kiangsu and Chekiang under the command of Ch'eng Te-ch'üan.

After the provisional republican government was established, a large number of parties and cliques began to clutter the political scene in China. Meng Sen became executive secretary of the Kung-ho-tang [republican party], led by Li Yuan-hung (q.v.), and an enthusiastic supporter of the movement to amalgamate the small groups to form large political parties. In September 1912 Meng and Chang Chien, who had recommended the establishment of a Sino-American bank and the reform of the salt administration as means of alleviating some of the new government's financial problems, were invited to Peking for consultation with Yuan Shih-k'ai. Meng Sen remained in Peking for some time before returning to Kiangsu to become a candidate in the national elections for the Parliament. He was elected to the National Assembly, and in April 1913 he went to Peking to assume office. The following month, the campaign for the amalgamation of political groups bore fruit when the Kung-ho-tang and two other parties which opposed the Kuomintang merged to form the Chin-pu-tang [progressive party]. Meng, who advocated the establishment of a responsible cabinet system {see Sung Chiao-jen) which would limit the powers of the presidency, was elected in July 1913 to the National Assembly committee charged with drafting a constitution. Four months later, Yuan Shih-k'ai paralyzed the Parliament by ordering the dissolution of the Kuomintang. Disheartened by this turn of events, Meng Sen left Peking and gradually divorced himself from political life. After the publication of the essay "Chusan-t'ai-tzu shih shu" [the accession of Emperor Yung-lo], which appeared in the Shanghai Shih-shih hsin-pao {China Times) in November 1913, Meng Sen came to be recognized as an authority on the history of the Ming-Ch'ing transitional period. In 1915 the Hsiao-hsueh yueh-pao [the short story] published his "Tung Hsiao-wan k'ao" [inquiry into Tung Hsiaowan], which purported to identify a number of characters in the Hung-lou-meng {Dream of the Red Chamber) as members of the court of an early Manchu emperor. The Commercial Press published a three-volume collection of Meng's writings, the Hsin-shih ts'ung-k'an, in 1916. Meng Sen became an associate professor of history at National Central University in Nanking in 1929. The following year, the Commercial Press published his Ch'ing-ch'ao ch'ien-chi [predynastic history of the Ch'ing], a pioneering work which aroused considerable interest in the academic world because of the methods Meng used to sift out propaganda and legend in reconstructing the history of that period. Meng's appointment as professor of history at Peking University in 1931 enabled him to utilize the rich documentary treasures of the old capital to advance his researches into the Ming-Ch'ing transitional period. The first part of his magnum opus, the Ming-yuan Ch'ing-hsi fung-chi [predynastic history of the Ch'ing in accordance with the chronology of the Ming] was published by Peking University in September 1934. By July 1937, when the Sino- Japanese war began, 16 volumes of this work had appeared, covering the period from 1371 to 1524. The Ming-yuan Ch'ing-hsi t'ung-chi, based mainly on the Ming shih-lu [veritable record of the Ming dynasty] and the Korean Yijo sillok [veritable record of the Yi dynasty], describes in detail the rise of Manchu power and its effect on the Ming empire. In this work, Meng corrected many errors of fact and interpretation made by earlier Chinese and Japanese scholars. Meng's Pa-ch , i chih-tu k'ao-shih [factual inquiry into the system of the eight banners], published in 1936, was an important study ofearly Manchu political organization.

In the spring of 1937 the students and faculty of Peking University held a celebration in honor of Meng Sen on his seventieth birthday. He responded by writing an essay, the "Hsiang-fei k'ao-shih," on the legendary Fragrant Concubine. In August 1937 Meng wrote the "Haining Ch'en-chia" [the Ch'en clan of Haining] to show that the Japanese occupation of Peiping would not force him to abandon his research. He also worked to improve his English and wrote poems to his friends which expressed his confidence that the Chinese would achieve victory. Meng fell ill in 1937, and Cheng Hsiao-hsü, who had become prime minister of Manchoukuo, came to visit him. Meng gave Cheng some poems in which he rebuked Cheng for cooperating with the Japanese. His illness gradually worsened, and he died on 14 January 1938.

In 1959 two collections of Meng Sen's works appeared. These were the Ming Ch'ing shih lun-chu [collected works relating to the history of the Ming and Ch'ing periods], compiled by Shang Hung-kuei and published in Shanghai, and the Ch'ing-tai shih [history of the Ch'ing period], compiled by Wu Hsiang-hsiang and published in Taipei.