"The Past of Imperial Politics: The Secret History of the Former Qing Dynasty" tells the story of the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, that is, from the so-called Nu ~ Erhachi "Thirteen Pairs of Armor to Raise Troops" to the ups and downs of the Yongzheng Dynasty in the past 150 years, showing the tragic and joyful lives of many historical figures such as Nu ~ Erhachi, Huang Taiji, Yuan Chonghuan, Hong Chengchou, Dolgon, Xiaozhuang, Kangxi, Wu Sangui and so on. History is still this history, the characters are still those characters, and the historical materials cited are basically the same, but through his own in-depth analysis and unique interpretation, the conclusions presented to us by Li Yaping are very different from the views of current authoritative experts, and even diametrically opposed. For example, Mr. Yan Chongnian, the president of the Beijing Manchu Society and the author of books such as "Talking about the Twelve Emperors of the Qing Dynasty", "The Biography of Nu~Erhachi", and "Sixty Years of the Death of the Ming Dynasty and the Rise of the Qing Dynasty", praised Nu~Erhachi, and believed that Hachi was "a great politician, military strategist and national hero in Chinese history and Shijie history", and a "great monarch" comparable to "Liu Bang, Gaozu of the Han Dynasty, Li Yuan, Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty, and Zhu Yuanzhang, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty". Regarding Huang Taiji's succession to the throne, Yan Chongnian basically held the theory of "conspiracy to seize the throne", believing that Huang Taiji had "used a plan to kill two birds with one stone", "separated the father-son relationship between Nu~Erhachi and Daishan, and prepared important conditions for him to seize the throne later".

After listing a large number of historical facts and showing the deeds of Nu~Erhachi's life, Li Yaping pointed out that Nu~Erhachi is not a great man of "eloquence and strategy", he is just a "leader of a bloodthirsty military robbery group", which is far inferior to Liu Bang and Zhu Yuanzhang, who created a new dynasty, "If you have to find out what strengths Nu~Erhachi has, it can only be said that he is very lucky, because he has two good, or excellent, sons - Huang Taiji and Dolgon." Therefore, Li Yaping believes that Nu~Erhachi "did not complete the transformation from a tribal chief to a politician until his death." Not to mention great statesmen". On the contrary, Li Yaping has a very high evaluation of Huang Taiji, believing that his cultural and martial arts are not inferior to any outstanding emperor in history, and his inheritance of the throne is an inevitable choice under the nomadic fishing and hunting tribe aristocratic republic, and the "conspiracy to seize the throne" is too far-fetched, so there will be later history books to evaluate its "saint", this "saint" word, is the heartfelt admiration of scholars of the latter dynasty, and the Kangxi Emperor was crowned by his son as the "holy ancestor", which is obviously not the same.